


your bouquet of golden roses

by lifeitself



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama, Friendship, Reunion Fic, because rose regenerated, except slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2019-08-21 18:30:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16581809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeitself/pseuds/lifeitself
Summary: It was insanely painful, and that was all that Rose registered, really. She floated, suspended in time, a puppet inside a glimmering glow; she was then dissimilated, bursting out into starfire and artron energy and cosmos dust, rearranging and reshaping andregenerating.





	1. Chapter 1

It was insanely painful, and that was all that Rose registered, really. She floated, suspended in time, a puppet inside a glimmering glow; she was then dissimilated, bursting out into starfire and artron energy and cosmos dust, rearranging and reshaping and _regenerating._

She wasn’t even aware of anything after a moment. It wasn’t nothingness; it was trying to see out of your elbow, it was… less than nothing. It was the absence of anything. 

And then the world cleared, and a woman with a curly hair slumped to her side, for all intents and purposes appearing completely dead. 

It was a good few hours before the world spun back into existence, and Rose stumbled to her feet, clutching her tattered black peacoat jacket and blue blouse closer around herself as she surveyed her surroundings. Simply existing was suddenly like trying to see through a swimming pool, like trying to gaze into the sun, it was like keeping awake after three days of no sleep. 

Rose breathed out, and with her breath came curls of golden regeneration energy, swirling around her and into her hair, sparking her eyes a glinting gold. 

“Ma’am!” came a voice, and Rose turned around halfway, stumbling, to see a man with his arms outstretched, blond hair and bright green eyes, “ma’am, are you alright,- ma’am-”

The world spun dark. 

Waking up was slow this time, but everything was a million times clearer. Rose found herself covered in a thick red duvet and laying on a dark brown couch. She swung her feet off the couch and stood up, giving her brain a moment to regain blood flow before clearing her throat. 

“Hello?-” she stopped, cutting off and frowning. “That’s… different…” she ran her tongue over her teeth, trying to _feel_ the existence of something different in her new mouth that would give her a more northern, almost irish accent. 

“Oh, you’re awake!” the man from earlier came into the room, eyes concerned. “I didn’t want to move you too much - you’ve been out of it for a whole day. If you didn’t wake up tomorrow, I was going to call the police or summat.” 

“That - thanks for not...doing that,” Rose replied succinctly, before turning quickly back to the couch, peering at it intently, and then back to the man. “Wait, tell me again- what’s your name?” 

“Uh,” he said, “right. My name’s Patrick- do you need anything? Do you want me to call you a cab? Is there someone I can phone for you?”

“No, Patrick. Thank you- I’ll be on my way, so sorry to inconvenience you-”

“Uh,” replied Patrick after a moment of blank staring, “you’re sure you don’t need anything? Food? You’ve just been,” he gestured to the couch, “passed out there for hours, you sure you don’t need any water?” 

“Yes,” Rose agreed, “I’m great. Thanks, really,” she continued, making her way through the room and to the door. 

“Uh, I should warn you-” started Patrick, but Rose did not heed him. Barefoot in her shredded trench coat and blouse, she flung open the door. Immediately, cameras flashed in her face, and there was a microphone under her nose. A million voices started talking at once, and Rose flung the door shut again, turning to Patrick with wide eyes. “You mind telling me what that’s all about?” she exclaimed, pulling back the blind to the side of the door slightly before pushing it back into place a second later. Someone started pounding on the door, and she locked it, throwing the deadbolt into place as an additional place, before staring at Patrick with wide eyes.. 

“Yeah, uh-” Patrick fiddled with his hands. “You’re being called the Golden Angel. Electronics shorted out when you were- glowing- one minute, I guess? Eyewitnesses say there was a blonde haired girl, and then an angel of the Lord descended, and came in the form of you-” 

“They’re saying - they’re saying I’m an angel of the Lord?”

Patrick fiddled with his fingers some more, and Rose felt a bit dizzy. “Uh, yeah.” 

“Right.” decided Rose, not deigning that with a response, “do you have any clothes I could use, by chance?”

“Uh, well, I have old ones of mine, but no women’s clothes-”

“That’ll be fine, really. And do you have a back entrance or something?”

“I can try to get you out the back, I suppose-” Patrick answered, and Rose nodded decisively. “That’d be grand, Patrick. And now you mention it, I am rather hungry as well- you mind if I raid your fridge?”

Patrick looked more shell shocked than anything, but he nodded vigorously enough, so Rose circled to the kitchen, opening the fridge and grinning at the presence of fresh fruit and a takeout bag of some sort of sandwich and chips. Grabbing an apple, a banana, and the bag of takeout, as well as a bunch of broccoli which looked appetizing for some reason, she returned to the couch. 

No sooner had the first chip touched her mouth than she recoiled. “Oh, god, have they always smelled so awful?” she questioned, peering down into the bag and suppressing the urge to gag. She took a large bite of the apple, relaxing at the crisp familiarity of the taste, before taking a large bite of raw broccoli. 

Patrick came back into the room, eyes widening as he took her in, apple in one hand and large broccoli stalk in the other, chewing contemplatively. His eyes then wandered to the chip bag, which had been carelessly tossed aside. 

“Don’t like chips?” he asked carefully, setting down his armfuls of boringly colored clothing next to her and reaching over to correct the bag of takeout before it tipped over. 

“Oh, no,” Rose declared through her mouthful of apple and broccoli, “love them.”

“Uh,” Patrick asked after a moment, “then why-”

“New tastebuds are such a hassle, I never even knew.” Rose replied, taking another large chomp of broccoli and another bite of apple before setting both down on the coffee table in front of her and turning to the clothing, eyes lighting upon a men’s sweater and a pair of black slacks, as well as a belt, grabbing both and smiling beatifically at Patrick. She felt her new tongue touch the back of her teeth, and it made her smile wider. Some things didn’t change, apparently. 

“Thanks loads, Patrick. I’ll see myself out when I’ve changed, yeah? Plausible deniability?”

Patrick nodded, speechless, and Rose grinned again before snatching up the rest of the broccoli and the apple, munching on both as she traipsed out of the room. 

It didn’t take long to change, and Rose left the remains of the dark coat on the bathroom floor, as well as ripping a long shred off of the blue blouse to tie her hair on top of her head, before finally turning to the one thing she had been avoiding. 

Her reflection stared back at her, and Rose stared, stunned by the familiar eyes and jaw and nose set underneath new hair. Were those really freckles? Rose grimaced, tugging at a lock of curly black hair that slipped out of the makeshift hair tie. Her face was almost eerily similar to before, and she took some small comfort in that, feeling increasingly as if she were a stranger in her own body, watching herself as an observer. At the same time, however, there were clear differences- freckles dusted over her nose and cheekbones and jaw, and her hair was thick and curly. Her fingers were slightly longer and more crooked. It was almost surreal, and Rose stared at herself in the mirror with wide, desperate eyes. 

She shook herself after a moment, cinching the belt around her waist to hold up the pants, before shaking out her shoulders, finishing off the stalk of broccoli and tossing the apple core to the bin. She opened the bathroom door, nodded at Patrick, who was sitting on the couch, hand in one palm and elbow resting on his knees. 

“Hey,” she finally said softly, “really, thanks.”

Patrick was silent for a moment before he took his head off of his palm, tilting his head at her. 

“Are you an angel?” he asked, and Rose was silent as he seemed to argue with himself before continuing. “Only, my sister- Ruth- she died last month, and I- I feel like this is a sign from God, you know. That she’s okay. That she’s happy up there. We were best friends. I- uh, I was just-” he shrugged helplessly, looking simultaneously helpless, resigned, and abashed. 

Rose smiled at him softly. “I’m not exactly sure who I am, Patrick. I have these vague feelings of who I have been, and a pull towards what I could be, but I don’t know who I am. But I know one thing,” she flashed him a quicksilver grin, tongue against teeth. “I do know that your sister must have loved you very much. And I’m very thankful for your hospitality.” 

Patrick was silent for a moment more before gracing her with a small smile. “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” he recited, before looking to his lap. “Thank you, I think.” 

Rose watched him, refraining from letting guilt seep into her mind, before turning to the back door, which led down some stairs to a sort of alley. “If you ever need anything, Patrick -” she said finally, opening the door and looking over her shoulder to meet his eyes, “I’ll do my very, very best to be there.” 

With that, she slid her feet into her ratty trainers she had found placed neatly by the couch where she had lain, and left, leaving a gently smiling Patrick McCaughan in her wake as the back door closed after her. 

* * *

The Doctor slammed her hand down onto the console, eyes bright. 

“Oh, come see!” she pronounced excitedly, gesturing at the display. Her eyes were a bit manic, and Yasmin wrinkled her nose while Ryan and Graham simply looked curious. 

“What’s that, then?” Graham asked, wandering around the console to stand next to the Doctor, who gestured wildly at the console screen, a mess of different languages that he couldn’t even begin to try and decipher. 

“Uh, Doctor,” Ryan pointed out, “we can’t exactly read that, you know-”

“I thought you said the Tardis had a sort of translation...thingy,” added Yasmin, circling around to the display.

“The translation matrix doesn’t work on its own language, see. Faulty, maybe, but- oh look at that, look at that-” she peered closer at the screen, swooping her fingers over the screen. 

“Why not?” Yasmin asked, leaning back and squinting at the screen as if the letters would somehow rearrange into something English-y. 

“It’s mine,” the Doctor replied absently, obviously no longer focused on the conversation. A picture appeared on the console, and the four of them leaned in. 

It was a diagram of some sort, blue and pale on the edges and mauveish in the middle. “Well that’s not good,” declared the Doctor, but her voice gave her excitement away entirely.

“So… what’s that then?” asked Ryan. “Why’s it dangerous? Do you know what it is?”

“No,” replied the Doctor, “but how brilliant! Let’s go find out what this is, then?”

“Why’s it so dangerous?” Graham asked, frowning at the photo. “What’s it showing?”

“A huge energy spike of time-related energy,” proclaimed the Doctor brightly, a grin tangling about her mouth. “Totally, completely impossible, unless a thousand vortex manipulators exploded within two feet of each other. Strap in!” she finished loudly, and slammed her hand down on the console before pulling a lever. The Tardis flung itself into motion, and Yasmin yelped and clung to the wall behind her as they were jolted around. The Doctor’s grin was manic. Ryan looked bemused but eager, and Graham looked apprehensive, but there was a definite air of enjoyment about him that made Yasmin grin a bit as the Tardis shuddered to a landing. 

The Doctor smiled at them. “Right then, you lot! Off we go, yea?” She spun to the door, hands gesturing wildly. “Really, this could be awfully dangerous, - fluke of a fixed point, self-generated timeline anomaly, dispersion of a linear disruption- all unlikely and equally impossible, but!” She spun back to them as she reached the door, both hands braced to open it. “It could be- it could very well be an alien, and it’s very interesting to me. Plus it’s rather close to Yaz’s home, so we might as well go, you know, check it out, don’t you think?”

“Doctor, we won’t judge you for checking this out,” Ryan conceded with a half-smile. “We’re not dumb, you know,” 

“I never thought so!” exclaimed the Doctor indignantly, but Ryan spoke over her to continue, 

“We know you’ve been bored out of your mind the last couple of weeks. You’ve taken us to ice mines on Galantia, star births on the edge of reality, and that strange, strange petting zoo yesterday, but nothing potentially life threatening has happened- let’s go check this out, yeah?”

“Yeah,” agreed the Doctor, before frowning at the overeager, breathless tone with which she had spoken and grinning apologetically, “Sorry. It’s not that, you know, I _want_ to be in life-threatening situations, it’s just that really, there’s only so many times I can pet a cryovolcanic methane squirrel before it’s just dull, you know?”

“Is there really?” muttered Graham under his breath, but he looked more amused than anything. 

“Sure, Doctor. Let’s go,” Yasmin smiled encouragingly, and the Doctor searched their eyes for a moment before smiling again. 

“Right then, off we go.” She shoved the Tardis doors open, and light flew in, sun speckled with dust swirling about the console room. 

The four of them exited the Tardis before closing the door softly behind them, and the Doctor squinted at their surroundings for a moment before whipping out her sonic screwdriver. “This is the street where the reading was taken,” she proclaimed decisively, the familiar whir of the sonic overtaking their ears. “If it was just some sort of fluke, there won’t be any strange readi- oh, hold on, that can’t be right-” 

“What can’t be right, Doctor?” asked Yasmin, who had passed the Doctor to look at the buildings from another angle. 

“I’ve seen this energy before - it can’t be here-”

“What do you mean, it can’t be here?” Graham asked, stepping closer to the Doctor and frowning at the screwdriver, which the Doctor shook violently and smacked against her palm before placing it about one inch away from her eyes, squinting so hard her eyes seemed shut. 

“Well, I mean, if the sonic read it as being here, it’s right, right?” asked Ryan, gazing around their surroundings. “Nothing seems too out of the ordinary, though, so I suppose that’s good, depending on what you’re looking for.”

“Oh, things are definitely not ordinary, Ryan,” muttered the Doctor, brow furrowed, before she pulled her face away from the sonic. “Right then, this just got exponentially more dangerous- if you want to go back to the Tardis- oh forget it, you lot are all too stubborn. Right then-”

“Where’ve you seen this energy before then, Doctor?” Graham asked, scratching his chin. 

The Doctor didn’t speak for a long moment before finally looking at Graham, though her eyes seemed almost to look through him. “Last time I saw this energy was when I, well- when I crash landed. It’s complicated, really,” she finally announced, and Yasmin grinned. 

“So there are others, then? Others like you? Maybe it’s your cousin or something-”

“It’s not,” replied the Doctor shortly, running a hand through her hair, “I don’t have any cousins. I don’t think. I might’ve, but- I’m missing something, I’m missing something -” she started pacing back and forth, frustrated. “I could try and trace the energy, but I’m feeling like that isn’t a good idea. Anything with access to that sort of power could most definitely pose a viable threat, and it wouldn’t know that we were friendly-” she halted. “Risky. Risky, risky, risky.” She turned to look at the three of them, eyes thoughtful. 

“Do you have a plan, then?” asked Yasmin, shifting her weight from one foot to another. 

“Well. Tracking the energy anyways, honestly.” the Doctor announced, looking rather pleased with herself. Ryan made a noise of amusement and apprehension in the back of his throat, and Graham looked rather concerned. 

“Didn’t you just say this was exponentially more dangerous than just impossibly dangerous?” he asked. 

“Well, yes,” concurred the Doctor, “but it’d be rather irresponsible of me to leave the energy alone.” 

“Just why is this energy so dangerous?” asked Ryan, hands deep in his pockets. 

“If misused,” the Doctor finally answered, “it can bend time. It’s… the energy is showing up as a mixture of artron energy and time vortex energy.” she frowned. “There are too many potentially catastrophic consequences to name, as well as a plethora of creatures dying to conquer even a small piece of energy for less than noble means.” she looked back at her sonic screwdriver. “Which means I’ve got to track it down. Right then- stay close! No wandering off until I know what, exactly, is causing this. We’ve got some energy to trace.” 


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn’t that Rose wasn’t trying to find somewhere to stay, really. It was just that she was developing an awful headache, and the more she walked the less she knew where she was going. 

The blimps were gone from the sky, and though subconsciously she realized that meant that she had somehow travelled - travelled dimensions, even, her conscious was in too much shock to really process what was going on. Desperation and pain were on the forefront of her mind, and she stumbled to a stop in front of a three story building with a bakery on the bottom level. The air smelled like spun sugar and melting butter, and Rose pushed open the door. Above her, a bell tinkled gently, and several feet in front of her, a woman with bright eyes and glossy brown hair tied back in a ponytail glanced up and gave her a smile. 

“Hello!,” she called. “Can I help you?”

Rose walked forward slowly, surveying the glass case stuffed full of of truffles and cake and biscuits and muffins and croissants and eclairs. The floor was blue and white tile, and several red sofas and red plastic tables were spread across the little floor space left over. Behind the woman was a door, and Rose could make out a mixer and a huge bag of flour from where she was standing. 

“I would -” Rose paused. “I don’t have any money, sorry,” she amended. She started to turn around, ready to leave, before pausing and taking an inquisitive breath, turning back around to the woman. “Do you have a job opening, perchance?”

The woman looked at her for a moment, chewing her lip thoughtfully. “Well,” she started, “Marie’s about to go on maternity leave. I wasn’t going to hire anyone new, but I suppose- you look like you need a job a bit.” Though her comment was blunt, her voice was kind and she wore a bright smile, and Rose relaxed somewhat. 

“Marie used to rent the spare room upstairs before she married Jaime. If once I show you around - have you fill some things out and get to know you a while- d’you think you’d be alright with staying up there? Not right away, mind - but if we could talk a bit-” she grinned at Rose, and her cheeks dimpled. “You’d have to sample my cooking a fair bit, I’m warning you- but it shouldn’t be too bad. So long as I don’t get any big aspirations.”

Rose shifted, licking her lips. She rather hadn’t expected to get as far as she was, and was a bit baffled. “Well I suppose-” she started. 

“What’s your name, then?” asked the woman, crossing her arms over her chest with a grin. “First things first, after all.”

“Uh, it’s-” Rose paused, and the woman lifted her eyebrows. “It’s Lisa.” 

“Lisa? Short for something?” asked the woman. “My name is Os.” 

“Short for Lisantha,” Rose answered with a shy sort of grin. “Yours, then? My family were flower freaks, you know the type.” 

Os shook her head, amused, and circled the display. “Yeah. Mine’s a nickname. Seem to have a bunch of different names people call me by but at the moment that’s what’s sticking.” She grinned again, rolling her eyes, before beckoning Rose towards her. 

“Come on back then, Lisa. I’ll show you where everything is, and if you’re amenable and seem like you’d be a good fit after, I’d be happy to get you more set up here.” 

Rose shifted, and let a smile curl up on her lips. “Sounds great.” 

* * *

It wasn’t that the Doctor was _not_ wary. But she didn’t seem especially scared as she marched out of the Tardis, though moments before she had been delightedly describing (in absolutely garish detail) the melting of the human brain when it came into contact with an overload of artron or vortex energy. Or both.

“Did you know that you all absorb a percentage of vortex energy when you’re in the Tardis?” the Doctor remarked, her coat flying out behind her as she spun on her heel to scan a seemingly normal brick wall. 

“We what now?” yelped Ryan, and Graham’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead. 

“Not exactly safe, is it, Doc?” Graham prodded, forehead wrinkling as his eyes tracked the looping figure eights the Doctor was spinning through the air with her fingers, before she stuck her index finger in her mouth with a flourish and made a contemplative noise. 

“Oh, Doctor,” groaned Yasmin, hearing her mother’s screeching about the unhygienic action in her head as if she were standing back in her own house. 

The Doctor grinned, shaking out her hand. “It’s not - the amount you’re exposed to - it’s not overly dangerous, per say. I wouldn’t recommend drinking it in your coffee or something- though I suppose - oh say! What’s this brilliant little-” she knelt down, picking up a shiny black button that looked rather as if it had just gone through several rounds with an angry sink disposal, like the one Yasmin’s American friend Sara had told her about. The Doctor pulled out her sonic screwdriver from the pocket where she had shoved it just moments before, and scanned it with narrowed, curious eyes. 

“Brilliant! Oh this here, - this little button here, my pals, my fam, my- Rassilon no, my buddies? Well that’s just awful- here, look at this a moment-” she gestured excitedly at the button, and Ryan blinked at her, shaking his head in amusement. 

“See what, Doctor?” asked Yasmin patiently. 

“Well. Actually - you can’t see it unless you’re wearing specific, well, glasses, equipment, etcetera, but around this little beauty is a collection of - rapidly dissipating, mind, not here for too much longer - time energy. Gorgeous, unexplainable- and, unless I get her back to the Tardis, absolutely not trackable when this energy wears off completely- speed is of the essence, my - oh forget it!” The Doctor tossed a broad grin at her companions, and in a burst of movement was off, leaving her hapless friends to run after her. 

“I am not cut out for this, Doc,” Graham groaned, but his eyes were more fondly exasperated than tired, so Yasmin smiled at him as they raced after the Doctor back to the Tardis. 

“Can’t stand still for a moment, I swear,” Ryan panted, but he was grinning at Yasmin as he said it, and Yasmin caught his eye and grinned as they sprinted towards the blue box at the end of the street. 

* * *

The Doctor opened the doors and swung around the console to an oddly shaped device with an almost manic energy, and her entire body seemed to tremble with barely contained energy as she thrust the button into a small yellow container, which she pushed into a slot in the console energetically. 

“Do you think it could be someone you know?” Yasmin asked carefully, recalling that the Doctor herself didn’t have much - or, as far as she knew, anything - in the way of family. At least, not anymore. 

The Doctor blew out a puff of breath, disrupting the fine strands of hair around her face and sending them into a soft disarray around her face. In the gentle lighting of the Tardis, she looked like an avenging, merciful angel, like something Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala himself had fashioned and sent as a messenger to those of the Earth. 

“Could be, could be- doesn’t mean they know me, though- time travel, tricky business. Could just be Jack - friend of mine, well, I say friend- could be someone I know- could be something I caused- well, a past me- or well, a future me- although that would make a tricky situation, and we haven’t quite imploded yet, so I’m holding out on that one a moment- say, Yasmin, have you ever tried chips from the first chippy in London? Hold on, what am I saying - of course you haven’t-” The Doctor was rocking on her heels now, looking at the display monitor in a haze of brilliant energy and excitement. 

“You alright there then?” Ryan asked, who had watched this interaction between Yasmin and the Doctor from a few feet away. 

The Doctor’s energy was feverish, eyes bright and pinpointed into spikes of pure energy. 

“Who, me?” She scoffed with a laugh. “I’m always alright, Ryan Sinclair. One of the few constant things about trusty old me, me. Always a sturdy face. Say, do you think my face looks like one you would listen to? I haven’t had much luck with people listening to me so far with you all, have I - my friends, my bunch- oh I rather like that one- would you be amicable to being called my bunch? As in, here’s my bunch, here’s the bunch - My bunch, consisting of Ryan, Yasmin, Graham- brilliant- bunch-” 

The display flashed and divided into what seemed like a million different complex circles, and Yasmin watched as the Doctor spun around, seemed to take in the display screen for a moment, then whooped slightly. 

The three companions turned to her expectantly. “Well then, Doc?” asked Graham, brow furrowed. “What do you say it is, then?”

“Well, my brilliant bunch-” she pondered that phrase for a moment, humming, then continued, “I can say with absolute certainty that it is most definitely not anything, or anyone, I have ever come into contact with before.”

Yasmin’s eyes sparkled. “Adventure then, Doctor?”

The Doctor grinned. “Always.”

* * *

Three days. It had taken three days for everything to catch up with Rose, who had been as normal as she could until now. And now here she was, sat in the corner of the bathroom in her room above Os’s bakery, legs akimbo about her, and the too-large bathrobe tangled around her like some sort of would-be murder weapon intent on strangling the life out of her arms and waist. 

She didn’t know what, exactly, had brought reality crashing back into the forefront of her mind, yet here she sat, and a few feet in front of her sat the mirror, which had fallen from its stationary position above the sink and now was balancing precariously on the edge of the toilet and rim of the porcelain bathtub, a million weblike cracks spanning its previously smooth surface. 

She had taken a hot shower, intent on changing out of her flour-stained shirt and into some of the clean, warm clothes Os had supplied her with, (“until you and I can go shopping together, hm?”) but had glanced in the mirror a moment too long- she had reached out to the stranger she saw there- and the unceremoniously slipped on a puddle of water left by her dripping hair on the cold granite floor. Her hands had scrabbled for a hold, and her fingers had pulled desperately at the edge of the mirror as if a piece of aluminium backed glass held up by a nail could stabilize her 56 kilogram descent.

And in that half second, as she observed her wide, surprised eyes in the periphery of her eyes, she had felt a million miles away, as if she were observing her own self from outside of her body. The mirror had tilted too far to the right and then fallen, and then Rose herself had tumbled backwards, legs tangling in her stupidly large bathrobe. She landed flat on her back. It had taken her a full five minutes to muster the strength to actually sit up, if only a bit, and now she stared at herself in the mirror, eyes wide and hair damp and mussed up around her face in defiant black curls. 

It wasn’t as if she had lost much. Travelling all about the world using fake documentation didn’t endear her to many, and her family was now such a distant memory that thinking of them was now more fond than painful. A century ago, - and the thought sounded ridiculous, even just thinking it- Rose Tyler, 200 some years old- she would have been engulfed in so much pain. A century ago, her brother would have just passed away in his sleep, leaving Rose angry and bitter, but mostly at herself. Bad Wolf. Her own fault - her own doing- had separated her from her entire family. She had destined herself to her own destiny, in a moment of terrifying omniscience, but she - the wolf, Bad Wolf, herself- hadn’t spared a thought, a single lingering moment, for those closest to her. 

Rubbing at her eyes, Rose watched the stranger in the mirror mimic her action, and stared back into too-blue eyes.

“Hey Lisa?” Came Os’s voice from Rose’s room. She must have heard the loud crashes of the mirror splintering and a woman crashing onto the floor and come to investigate. She had most likely come from the kitchen, where she and Rose had spent all day baking and creating as Os had shown Rose several of the specialty recipes they used to create their different pastry doughs. “Ah - you alright in there?” Her voice was light and concerned, and Rose sighed shakily, finding her vocal chords. 

“Yeah Os, ‘m fine, promise. Got a bit tired and slipped on a puddle. Just clumsy, promise. And ah- your mirror- I might have to replace that at some point-”

“Oh Ra- oh god, is it broken? Is there a lot of broken glass? Are you bleeding?”

Rose shook her head, though she knew that Os couldn’t see her through the cheery red door. 

“No, just sorta- splintered? I’m going to come out in a moment.”

“So long as you’re okay, then,” Os decided, sounding satisfied. “I’ve got ice if you need it.” She paused a moment, and Rose could almost hear her deliberating, before she continued, “Lisa, when you’ve a moment, you’ve got to taste this new recipe for a sort of whipped omelette I’ve made- it’s divine, and I think I’ve finally perfected it, only, I’ve tasted it so much that perhaps I’m desperate.” She laughed. “I’m glad you’re alright. I’ll see you down in the kitchen for dinner!”

“Yeah,” Rose breathed, forcing her voice to come out light and unconcerned. “See you in a while, Os. I’ll be sure to remember to try your egg concoction.”

She listened to the fading sound of Os’s footsteps for a few moments, and then sank backwards, back pressing up against the wall. Her reflection stared at her, unimpressed and distant. Rose closed her eyes, but her own eyes stayed reflected back at her, embossed on the backs of her eyelids, their color mocking her with a distant familiarity that she didn’t want to linger on. 

Of all the losses Rose had suffered and memories of those lost she had grown fond of, thinking of that particular shade of blue and the loss attached to it still sent grief piercing through her so violently she felt she might throw up where she sat. And yet, it was impossible not to think of him, the same way it was impossible to ignore the stars when she couldn’t sleep at night, or the way that she had changed, her face shifted and her middle fingers now crooked at the second joint, or how sometimes she would wake up to the laughter of someone in her dreams who was now but a stranger lost in her past, but whose laugh stayed with her no matter how hard she wanted (didn’t want) to forget it.

It was also impossible to ignore the fact that there were no blimps in the sky, a fact which had first seemed too trivial to consider compared to her pain and desperation, then too painful to comprehend. And now here Rose was, somehow in a dimension she had never truly kissed goodbye, a completely different person than she had been.

While her spirit had been here before, _she,_ this body, this person, who she didn’t even know - she didn’t even know herself- had never been in this dimension. The D- _He_ had never seen her before. He had never even met her before. Her, sure, but not _her._

And Rose couldn’t do it. She couldn’t even imagine finding him and facing him without feeling sick. For Rassil- for god’s sake, she had faced millions, billions even, of absolutely terrifying things- she had stared straight into the face of death with a golden grin and spread the atoms of the earth about her into a misty golden halo, and yet this scared her more than anything. Looking into his eyes and seeing nothing- seeing _nothing_ there. Or worse, seeing something there- seeing recognition, and then gradually watching it fade into apathy and confusion as the Do- as _he_ discovered that they were no longer compatible. No longer Shiver and Shake. No longer two halves of a whole- just two halves, one bent out of shape into something he could no longer recognize. 

And that was that. That was all Rose could even think about, because her eyes were already swimming and she hadn’t even thought his whole _name._ Rose let her shoulders shake for a moment before pulling herself to her feet using a part of the rim of the bathtub on which the cracked mirror did not balance.

It was time for her to discover herself, now. And to make herself discoverable only to herself- to become disinteresting and detached from him. To anything that would bring him near her ever again. Because as much as she wanted to spread her hand and dissolve anything connecting her to him, she was attached to him- they were like two equal bodies in orbit facing each other, and she was too strong to let him go. So she would make herself _herself_ and bring the memories of him, but never actually find him, and bring him. 

Rose opened the bathroom door, calling down to Os as she stepped out. 

“Do you have that omelette on the stove, Os? ‘M ravenous and I’d kill for something to taste good- something that tastes good, that is- lemme get on some pants and I’m comin’ right down, yeah?”

There was a distant noise of assent from the kitchen, and Rose felt a smile twist her lips and her tongue touch the back of her teeth as she set about getting dressed and moving forwards. 


	3. Chapter 3

Yasmin undid half of her hair and then tied it back up into its bun in quick, practiced motions, her legs throbbing as she sat down gingerly on the bench. The Doctor had spent the past several hours dashing from spot to spot in search of the elusive energy source, remarking loudly on the “beautiful balance of time energy- no wait, that’s me. Not that I have a beautifully balanced - well, I suppose I do, haven’t I? Perks of being me, I suppose-” or “The nifty thing about this setting here is that I can filter out the ambient energy of just experiencing any passing of time at all- I reprogrammed this one into my sonic right from the start, because you wouldn’t believe the kind of disruption this stuff -time passing, that is- can cause if you don’t- aha!”

At the moment, though, the Doctor was sitting on the bench next to Yasmin, eyes sharp and unfocused. It was very clear that she was thinking intently about something, and Yasmin was hesitant to disrupt whatever was running through her head, for fear of setting her off on a mad dash again before any of them could properly catch their breath. 

Graham had tapped out almost immediately when they had started the on and off sprinting, and Yasmin was beginning to think that he’d had the right idea. “No offense Doc,” he’d insisted, “but I’d really rather not be putting all this strain on myself unless absolutely necessary. You lot should go look, and I’ll have a slower peek around, see if I spot anything too out of the ordinary, and then give you a call if I do.”

“Sounds grand to me,” Ryan had replied when it became clear that the Doctor was too busy inspecting a section of crosswalk to be of much particular use in the responses department. “We’ll be with the Doctor, trying to keep up.”

“I believe it,” Graham had grinned, and patted the Doctor on the back as he walked away. “Good luck, Doc. See you soon, Yasmin.” 

Now Ryan and Yasmin were equally short of breath, and they traded telling looks with each other. 

“Doctor,” started Ryan, and Yasmin wanted to tell him to be quiet and let them relax a while longer, but the Doctor’s eyes had swivelled to him, and the damage was done. “Have you found much?”

The Doctor stared through him a moment before her eyes sharpened, and she turned to Yaz a moment before looking the both of them in the eyes. 

“I’ve found things, but they don’t particularly add up, so I’m trying…” she hummed, and Yasmin half-grinned. “Not much makes sense around you Doctor- no offense, of course- but that’s fine with us. Is there anything you _do_ know? Can we help?”

Ryan nodded expectantly in agreement with her. “It’s alright if it doesn’t make a load of sense yet, Doctor- only, I’d much prefer knowing what I’m doing ‘stead of feeling like a rat chasing its tail all the day long, if you don’t mind.”

The Doctor grimaced apologetically. “Rassilon, I’m sorry, Yaz, Ryan. I’ve been rather caught up in it all, haven’t I been? Here.” She pointed to a spot of graffiti on the wall opposite them, and their eyes tracked her movement to rest upon the spray painted bricks. 

“What’s special there, then?” inquired Ryan, brow furrowed. “Looks like old graffiti to me. Nothing much.”

And indeed, the wall and graffiti were entirely unremarkable. Large and obviously old, the garish handwriting in the center of the wall was partially obscured in many areas by fresher art or swears, and Yasmin squinted to try and make out what the words said. 

“Bad Wolf?” she finally made out, turning to the Doctor. “That doesn’t make any sense. Unless you’re pointing at that symbol -thing- above the O there? The one with the-” she wiggled her fingers “tentacles?”

“I think that’s a toothbrush,” Ryan said uncertainly. “Doctor?”

The Doctor was uncharacteristically quiet for several moments. “Bad Wolf,” she finally stated, as if tasting the words carefully on her tongue. “I don’t know what it’s doing here, but it never bodes too well for me. Died once, even. Then died again- sort of. It was more of an emotional death- Rassilon, I sound melancholy, don’t I?” Her voice became more cheerful immediately, and she seemed to physically shake off whatever melancholy spirit had possessed her. “It means that whatever’s happening, it can’t be good. But it’s probably not out to harm me- or, maybe it is, but Bad Wolf isn’t.”

“What’s Bad Wolf then, Doctor?” asked Yasmin, squinting more closely at the words. “What do you mean it never bodes well? Are you alright? Have you been here before?”

“Bad Wolf is the warning,” replied the Doctor, and her voice sounded rather like it was old and burdened for a moment before bouncing back. “I am the reply. She follows me- well, the words, that is. The words appear whenever I need to notice something _really particularly_ important. Which means,” she stood up forcefully, a bounce in her step as she spun on her heel, “that something most definitely really particularly important is happening. All I have to figure out is what , exactly, that would be.”

“Who’s she?” asked Ryan, and Yasmin bit her lip, having noticed the phrase of speech as well but having felt more hesitant to actually ask after it. 

The Doctor let out a ‘pah’ of air, a smile pasted to her face that didn’t seem fully genuine, but was unabashedly and without a doubt fond. 

“Bad Wolf, that is,” continued Ryan after a moment. “Is she someone?”

The Doctor closed her eyes for a moment too long to be excused as a blink, before opening them again to look at them both with a laser sharp gaze. “She was.” came the short reply. “She was absolutely brilliant. Goddess, really. For a moment. And in that moment, she saw the ends of the Earth,” the Doctor trailed off in fond recollection for a moment, and the very air seemed too fragile to inhale in that vulnerable moment, “and she loved so fiercely that I still feel her protection to this very day. Bad Wolf. She follows me.”

Yasmin shifted, unsure how to respond. “She sounds fantastic, Doctor.” 

The Doctor grinned a sun-bright smile at her, and the moment was no longer so tragically delicate. “Fantastic, eh? Yasmin, you are exactly, exactly, exactly right. She was absolutely, without a doubt, _fantastic._ ” 

When it was quiet for another beat, the Doctor continued, the previous moments seemingly of the past. Her eyes were full of their usual energy again. “You humans, you lot- never cease to amaze me, you do. I know I’ve said it, but I really do have the best bunch around. You lot are the most brilliant- the best of humanity. Now, you may not always get it all right, but the thing is, you make amends, you stand up- you do it again. You keep striving to do better. To be better. That’s more beautiful than,” she gestured wildly towards the blue sky, “than all the stars I could ever hope to see in a billion years. And trust me, I’ve had the time,” she continued, and Ryan’s jaw loosened enough to drop for a moment before he closed it with a snap. “You lot are just brilliant. Just- oh, brilliant!” 

The end of the Doctor’s sentence, however, was not a continuation of her praises of Yasmin and Ryan and the human race, but instead a remark about something by the wall on which the faded words “Bad Wolf” stood. The Doctor advanced towards the bricks with a long, excited stride, whipping out her sonic with bright eyes. 

“What’s happening now, then,” asked Ryan, coming to a stop behind her as she scanned around the O in ‘Wolf.’

“The button we found earlier? It had enough energy to - well, simply put, I could identify it as an unknown. This here is that same energy, but enough of it to maybe- if I’m very lucky- pinpoint the energy to a time and space location. Seems awfully easy after all that Bad Wolf business, but fingers crossed that this time it’s a bit simpler than usual, yeah?”

Yasmin’s eyebrows rose in skepticism, but she stayed silent. Ryan traded another look with her, and the Doctor turned around just in time to catch the tail end of their visual conversation. 

“Not encouraging, Yaz, Ryan. We’ll have to work on that one, then,” she remarked, but her face was fond. “Adventure then? Up for it?”

“Can you pinpoint the location already?” inquired Yasmin, surprised. 

“If I fiddle with the s- well, short answer, yes, in a few moments. I can. You coming with?” Her tone was bright and excited as she watched them. “Always, Doctor,” Yasmin replied, and Ryan nodded as well. “Of course, Doctor,” he grinned, and the Doctor shot them a quick smile before slamming the heel of her sonic into the brick wall. Yasmin jumped a bit, watching intently as the Doctor muttered something about calibration before scanning the wall, squinting at the display of her sonic, and then turning to them with a determined gaze. “Got it.” Her voice was liquid, excited energy and solid, focused determination. “Let’s roll, fam.”

* * *

Os’s laughter had been so warm and soft, and as Rose had eaten with her the previous night, she had come to think of Os as a friend.

“You really think that?” Os had said, eyes full of laughter. “You like the whipped omelette better than the - that?” she gestured to the monstrosity lying in a small dish next to Rose’s plate. 

Rose had grinned, tongue between her teeth. “Os, I’m awfully sorry to say there’s not much competition-”

“Oi! What d’you mean there’s no competition?” Os’s eyes had sparkled as she stuck her hands on her hips. “I spent a good long time on that, Lisa -”

“‘S alright, but I won’t be trying it any more, sorry,” Rose had laughed, eyes watering with how hard she was giggling. 

“I’m never going to get eggs right, I swear,” Os had pouted, and she had looked annoyed for a moment before brightening, throwing up her hands. “But I’ve got an eternity to keep trying, haven’t I?”

“I suppose,” Rose had replied with a smile, then tilted her head. “What made you want to start this business, if it wasn’t the draw of creating a million different types of eggs and pastries?”

Os grinned and then was quiet a moment, before biting her lip and sitting down on the chair next to Rose, smoothing out her apron on her lap and leaning in close like she was about to tell a secret. 

“Well, honestly, when I started it- I wasn’t much thinking I’d be here long. But then it was sorta nice to have somewhere to come back to. I’m not much good at it, though. Staying places.” Though Os’s voice had started light, the end of her sentence held a certain weight Rose wasn’t sure she wanted to disturb. 

“I get that,” Rose had said, hesitating a moment before placing her hand over Os’s on the table. “‘S nice to have somewhere to belong.” 

“Yeah,” Os agreed, then grinned. “And then you showed up, and it seemed like a sign to settle down for a bit. It’s not like I mind baking- when I’m not trying to finangle something edible out of eggs. It’s so frustrating!” The grinning Os had returned, and she had looked Rose in the eye as if sharing a secret. “Nomatter how hard I try or how long I try it, I just can’t get eggs quite as perfect as I wish I could, you know?” Her serious tone was outshone by the glimmer of amusement in her eyes.

Although she had complained about her eggs several times, it seemed as if she had simply become resigned to the fact that she couldn’t make a decent souffle for Rose, and was simply complaining good-naturedly. Rose laughed. 

“If it makes you feel better I’m picky,” she admitted. “I used to absolutely die for chips, but they’re so awful now I can’t even stomach sticking one in my mouth. Do you-” Os was laughing at her. “Do you know how awful that was to discover?” She paused, amused, so Os could quiet down for a moment, before speaking in an amused whisper. “Just one day, well- waking up, I s’pose- and discovering I now hate chips. I hadn’t had them for a while, sure, but still-” she grinned and shook her head.

“It’s okay to change, Lisa,” laughed Os. “You’re still you if you don’t like chips.”

Rose had smiled at her, the words a gentle encouragement Os didn’t even know she had provided. “I suppose,” she returned, “but it feels like a cosmic betrayal of sorts.” 

Os had laughed again, then stood up, glancing at the clock behind her.

“Oh my stars!” 

Rose snorted. “You sound like a gran,” she had teased, and Os had rolled her eyes in Rose’s direction. 

“It’s getting later than I’d realized, that’s all,” she’d retorted. “I don’t want us to be messing up the breads tomorrow. The eggs are one thing.” She shook herself. “I’m off to bed.” She tilted her head like a bird. “You too?”

“Yeah, probably’s a good idea,” Rose had sighed, smiling at Os as she got to her feet as well.

“Oh, I know,” retorted Os brightly. “Have them often. One thing you’ll get to know about me - I’m awfully clever.” Then her smile grew fonder. “I’ll see you tomorrow then, bright and early.”

Rose nodded affirmatively and Os grinned before ducking out of the room, calling a goodnight behind her. Rose had sat there and replied her own goodnight quietly, pondering the quick wit of Os compared with the quick wit of the- well. Other important people in her life. 

Os was right, wasn’t she? Rose smiled. She was still- she might not be the _same_ person, but a change of body and mannerisms hardly changed who she was when it came to what she valued. Who she valued. What she believed. _Who_ she believed in. Who she became friends with too, apparently.

And now here Rose was hours later, after a decent enough rest, staring at the ceiling of her little room and thinking about having a new friend. That’s what Os was, wasn’t it? A friend. This body’s first. And that was something incredibly… Rose couldn’t even think of a word that she could use to encompass the feeling. 

The bed was so cozy that Rose just lay quietly for several minutes even after waking up. It was still dark out - Os had her get up early every day in order to properly prepare for the business day ahead.

But in this moment, all was completely quiet and peaceful, the duvet warm and soft against her legs and the pillow folded just so under her head. After a few last moments of pondering, Rose sat up and rubbed at her eyes, throwing her legs over the side of the bed and standing up. 

She made her way downstairs to the kitchen, tying an apron around her waist and peeking around corners, trying to find Os’s familiar mane of brown hair. 

After a few minutes of searching, it became obvious that Os wasn’t in any of the main rooms. It was already twenty minutes past when they usually started folding the dough for the pastries, and Rose worried her lower lip. Maybe Os had been held up on an errand?

Either way, she wasn’t quite sure that she wanted to start the baking without her, but she also knew that in a few hours their customers would be coming in expecting fresh bread and pastries, as well as fresh ground coffee. 

“Os?” called Rose one last time, wandering back up the stairs to where Os slept. She knocked on the door, pausing to tilt her head towards the door frame. “Are you in there?”

There was no response, and Rose rested her hand on the doorknob for a moment, debating whether or not to open it. Testing it gently, she pushed the palm of her hand down onto the metal, and the doorknob gave. The door opened with a soft chink of metal against metal, and Rose started to call Os’s name into the room, before her eyes took in what was _inside_ the room, and the words faltered and stopped on her lips. 

Os’s room didn’t have a bed, but it was quite large, and from one wall protruded a half circle table on which rested a multitude of clean, sterile looking levers. Other than that, though, Os’s room was extraordinarily welcoming, soft and red with velvety fabric draping over walls down from corners. Across the floor were various groups of items, starting with a large pile of what looked like messily folded aprons, a rather oddly shaped whisk, a stack of books nearly as tall as Rose herself (which itself was surrounded by pens and notebooks and looked as if it were the product of a very intense research session). 

A bench against an opposite wall was piled high with many pairs of shoes, half of which were flat and remarkably stylish, while the other half looked like cozy heels, and a few scattered throughout were stilettos that looked scarily tall. 

“Os?” Rose called again. “Sorry to come in, only, ‘s a bit late and I thought if you were late I might just get started on getting the bread out from where you put it to resting last night-”

“Oh, bother,” came Os’s voice, and suddenly there was a door that Rose hadn’t seen before in the back of the room opening, and Os stumbled out, hair a mess and eyes lined with makeup, dressed in a blue dress with a cardigan and a belt around the waist, looking rather half put together. She started when she saw Rose, and closed the door behind herself quickly, leaning down to unbuckle her shoes before tossing them towards the bench and striding towards Rose. 

“I’ve lost track of the time, haven’t I? It’s morning now?” She made a frustrated sort of noise in the back of her throat. “See, I never get the hang of it. It’s stupid. Who decided to function this way, anyways? It wasn’t me. Well, I suppose, in a way- I’ll be down in a moment Lisa, awfully sorry-”

“Os,” started Rose, “you’re wearing shoes. I thought you were still asleep.” She paused a moment, taking in Os’s appearance. “Did you even… sleep last night?” 

Os made a little noise. “Ah, funny story-” 

“Os, sleep is important,” Rose sighed, “tell you what, I’ll get started on everything downstairs best I can, and you rest for a few hours before everyone arrives, right?” There was something happening here, but Rose couldn’t quite put her finger on it, and she put it to the side for a moment. Now wasn’t the time to be clever.

Os made another little sound that Rose couldn’t quite decipher, before shaking her head determinedly. “I’m fine, I’m fine- was going to go run some errands but didn’t realize it was time for me to be down already- thanks for finding me. Awful at time, me.” 

She stepped around Rose to the door, and Rose turned to watch as she left the room and went into the hallway, heading down the stairs a moment later. 

“You coming, then?” came her voice a moment later, and Rose looked over her shoulder to look at the door from which Os had entered, before turning back to reply. “I’ll be down in a ‘mo.”

Os yelled something back, but as they were now a floor away, Rose couldn’t quite decipher what, exactly, Os was trying to tell her. Peering out the door to make sure Os wasn’t at the bottom of the stairs waiting for her, she went back through Os’s room towards the door. 

She wouldn’t have normally nosed around someone’s room like she was right now, but the thing was- she could have sworn the building didn’t extend far enough for Os’s already slightly too large room to fit _another_ room behind it. So what was it, then? And why had Os come out of whatever the room was already wearing shoes?

Rose’s hand stilled on the doorframe, and she suddenly shook herself. 

This wasn’t an adventure. This wasn’t some situation in which Os was hiding something. This wasn’t another jaunt out around the universe into a life or death situation - this was just Rose, excusing away her nosy behavior. She was just trying to justify snooping. Feeling suddenly a bit silly, Rose let go of the door and headed out of Os’s room, closing the door softly behind her. Really, Os had been nothing but kind and trusting. A bit of weird behavior was normal for _anyone_ normal- she just had to remember that.

And remember how to be normal again, not living her life waiting for some alien species to do- something. Or. something. Not overanalyzing every second to find otherwordly solutions to strange problems.

Rose descended the stairs and headed to the kitchen to actually start preparing for the day. 

But try as she might, she couldn’t forget Os’s strange, impossible door.


	4. Chapter 4

“Should be right… here then-” 

The Doctor turned the corner with a dramatic flip of her coat, and Yaz peered after her curiously.

They were standing in the back alley of several businesses, and it smelled faintly of sugar and smoke, which wasn’t altogether unpleasant.

However, it was decidedly not giving Yasmin any particular vibes of “mysterious and powerful time energy.” 

“Uh, I’m not seeing anything,” Ryan started after a moment, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “You sure you’ve got the right spot?”

The Doctor acknowledged him with a loud noise of amused incredulity. “Am I sure I’ve got the right spot? The sonic is never wrong. Well.” She paused, shook the device in question, and peered closely at it. “Almost never.”

“Well then, why’s nothing here then,” Yasmin asked, scuffing the ground curiously with her foot after inspecting their surroundings for a moment.”

The Doctor’s face scrunched up. “Oi.” Then seconds later, “I’m not quite sure on that one.” She looked at her sonic again with a frown and then shrugged. “You know what Ryan, you may be right.” She shook her sonic at him, and Ryan crossed his arms with an air of amused skepticism. 

“That’s nice of you,” he returned, shaking his head with a grin on his face. “So what are you thinking of doing now, then, if your sonic isn’t cooperating?”

The Doctor hmmed and took another scan. “See, I’m actually not convinced this isn’t...right. Don’t see how it could be originating somewhere else. According to this reading,” she spun on her heel and waved her sonic about pointedly, “we’re right were we should be.”

“So is it hidden, then?” Yasmin shifted her weight from one foot to the other, gesturing with one hand to illustrate her point. “Whatever it is the energy is coming from?”

“Oh, good one, Yaz!” The Doctor smiled brightly at her. She continued under her breath. “Maybe it was some sort of temporal anomaly straightening itself out,” then, “Oh, what am I even saying. That doesn’t make any sense at all. What on earth could be so interesting about this back alley full of - oh, lovely, some shops. You know, I’ve always loved a shop. Really, honestly, shops are- what do they say? Shops are ‘where it’s at,’ I say.” 

Ryan made a face. “No, let’s not do that one.”

The Doctor pouted. “You don’t like a little shop?”

“No,” Ryan laughed at her, “the ‘where it’s at,’ business. That’s just - wait, Doctor, where are you going-”

The Doctor had started walking down the alley determinedly. 

“Doctor?” called Yasmin, and she traded a look with Ryan before the two of them set off after her at a fast pace. 

“No, no, no-” The Doctor had paused suddenly, staring at the back of a building towards the end of the alley with a frustrated expression on her face. “This makes no sense-” she stared at her sonic, then turned on her heel to face Yasmin and Ryan. 

“Worse than I thought,” she said in an abrupt manner. “Honestly, I was hoping for things to just work out real smooth for once. You know?” She threw her hands up with a sigh, but instead of sounding put-upon as she had probably intended, she instead sounded excited. Which made Yaz more than a bit worried.

“Doctor, isn’t it… dangerous that you can’t find whatever’s causing that energy you were so worried about?” Ryan asked.

“Of course it is! But we have a bigger problem than the energy itself, now,” replied the Doctor, rocking on the balls of her feet. Although she didn’t seem outwardly concerned, her back and legs were a cord of tension, and she seemed about ready to sprint off into another direction. Thankfully, she was restraining herself at the moment. 

“Uh, what’s that, then,” inquired Ryan, who _did_ look concerned, although Yasmin wasn’t sure if that was his _own_ concern or his concern at the Doctor’s _lack_ of concern. Whichever it was, Yasmin was inclined to agree with him. 

Sometimes, when the Doctor didn’t seem concerned, it meant that she was _extremely_ concerned, which boded well for no one. 

“Well,” started the Doctor lightly, dragging out the L well beyond what was necessary, “the energy being out there is, well, bad, but the energy is being purposefully hidden from me. And when that sort of energy is in the sort of hands that knows well enough about me to hide it from me- that’s, well. That’s bad.”

“What sort of bad, then?” Ryan tried, and Yasmin grimaced. 

“Well, you know,” remarked the Doctor, scrunching her nose up and not quite meeting his eyes. “You know. Probably means that whoever has it isn’t keen on letting me in on what they’re doing with it, and since they know me they also know I’d have a vested interest in it, which means they probably aren’t doing something I’d like.” She took a breath.

“And the kind of things you can do with that sort of energy aren’t party tricks.” The Doctor was suddenly serious. “I’ve seen what that sort of energy can do to someone. What people will do for it. What people will do with it. This kind of energy…” the Doctor’s eyes grew stormy before she looked away from them. “This sort of energy tears galaxies apart with less than a thought.”

Yasmin let out a breath. “You’re - that’s- bad then. How do we-?”

“You don’t say,” interjected Ryan. “But Doctor, if it’s so dangerous, isn’t chasing it down when it knows you’re looking for it just going to be more dangerous?”

The Doctor laughed, but it wasn’t her usual bubbly laugh. It didn’t reach her eyes. It barely moved her mouth. “That’s what I _do,_ Ryan. I run around doing things that other people don’t want to because it’s too dangerous. Because if I didn’t?” She shook her head, as if trying to dispel her seriousness. It didn’t particularly work. “The universe would fall apart.”

She brightened. “With your help of course. Always have a helper. Brilliant, you lot are. Coming with?”

“Well…” Yasmin started, and the Doctor’s face flickered a moment, so she hurried to finish. “Always. But I think we’ll need a plan first.”

The Doctor beamed. “Ten points to Yaz. Thoughts, fam?”

Yasmin bit her lip. “Well first we’ll have to figure out what’s hiding the energy, and how to get around it. And after that we can think of how to get _to_ it without letting... whatever it is know.”

“Couldn’t the Tardis do a scan sort of thing? More than your screwdriver?” asked Ryan pointedly. “It’s only a bit of metal. Maybe the Tardis can help us more.”

“Don’t diss the sonic!” exclaimed the Doctor with a moan. “I made this on crunched time. You can’t expect it to be perfect now, can you?” She huffed and tilted her head. “I think I’ve done about all I can with scanning, honestly. Do you think they’ve hidden themselves a bit out of sync with the timeline? Oh, that’s rubbish too. Ignore me. Listen- Oi! Ma’am! Excuse me!” The Doctor had brightened upon seeing a woman exit one of the shopfronts visible from the back alley, and Yasmin sighed. 

“You’re a bit loud there, thanks. Right by my ear,” muttered Ryan, and Yasmin elbowed him a bit and smiled kindly at the woman, who had spun to face them. 

“Sorry to bother ya!” The Doctor rocked back on her heels with a big smile. “We’ve just got a bit lost, is all! Only, question? Which shop did you just come out of?”

The woman tilted her head and adjusted her collar. “‘S only the bakery just here,” she said nicely, glancing them over. “The best omelettes. The chocolate’s nice too. You all travelling?”

She was wearing a patterned scarf and a blue jacket, and Yasmin thought it was a nice color with her dark curls across the collar. She was a bit far away and hard to make out, but her face seemed like it could be kind.

“Uh, yeah,” Ryan nodded, shrugging a shoulder. “Just trying to take in the sights wherever we can. Got a bit turned around. This one’s rubbish with directions,” he gestured at Yaz. 

“Oi,” Yasmin replied to him, and the woman laughed.

“Do you mind if we step in?” asked the Doctor, squinting at her, and the woman shrugged. “‘S not my shop,” she replied with a smile, “anyone’s welcome. I work there mornings. If you come by then I’ll give you a discount. We’ve only just closed, now. Close at five every day. Open at seven.”

The Doctor gave the woman a bright smile. “Love a discount, that’s me. Thanks so much.” 

The woman gave them a nod before heading off down the street, and the Doctor spun back to them with excited eyes. “Well that wasn’t quite as hard as I was thinking, was it?”

Yasmin’s brow crinkled. “What do you mean?”

“The bakery doesn’t even exist.” replied the Doctor. “You saw it when she came out, and then a moment later you’ve forgotten it, because it’s not actually there. Whatever _is_ there? It’s not a bakery.”

Yasmin turned to the door that she could have sworn had been there moments ago behind the woman, (though the Doctor was right- she had completely forgotten there had been a door until she thought about it again) but to her surprise, there was nothing there but a brick wall. 

Since they were in the back alley, it was plain to see that there wasn’t even enough space for a small building with more space in the back- there wasn’t even enough space to fit the doorframe Yaz could have guaranteed was _just_ there-

“But she said she worked there,” Ryan questioned, having closed his mouth from a sort of gape. “She didn’t look much like she was lying.”

“I don’t think she was,” answered the Doctor, bouncing on her toes. “Whoever she is, she doesn’t know that this bakery isn’t...there. At least to us. Let’s find someone else around and ask, shall we?” 

Yasmin set her shoulders determinedly. “Maybe it’s like- whoever’s hidden it’s smart enough to know you a bit, yeah? If they know you, they know you’ll have us with you. So they’ll know to hide it from us too. We’re stuck to you.” She knocked her hip against the Doctor’s, and the Doctor looked absolutely delighted.

“Like glue!” she agreed readily, then clapped her hands again. “Have I mentioned that you lot are absolutely brilliant? Off to the streets, then.”

* * *

Rose set her coat on the chair as she re-entered the shop, and almost immediately was met by Os, who was staring at her with wide eyes from behind the counter. 

“Uh… everything alright?” Rose asked, rounding the counter with a grin. 

“It doesn’t make sense,” breathed Os, approaching Rose with a sort of slowness that had Rose immediately on edge, slipping into old habits that this body had never even made habitual. 

“What doesn’t?” Rose asked, eyes careful as she surveyed Os’s wide ones, lined in careful black. 

“How you could see me.” 

“How I could-what?” “See me. You shouldn’t- if you’ve travelled with the Doctor-”

Rose started forwards, eyes blazing. “What did you jus’ say?” 

“So you do know him,” Os breathed. “How did you find me?”

Rose’s voice shook, and she couldn’t control it. “How do you know about the Doctor? Who _are you?”_ She backed up from the counter, pulse racing. If possible, Os’s eyes widened even further. 

“Lisa- your eyes-”

Rose took another step backwards. “Tell me right now, Os, or I swear-” the shock was beginning to be washed away by the sort of courage borne of running from death a million and one times. She looked Os straight in the eyes, and Os met her with steel. 

“He’s never told me about you, then?” She let out a puff of breath, disturbing a strand of brown hair fallen from her intricate low bun. “Typical.” Rose’s eyes did not waver in intensity. 

“Can’t have him finding me, so I’ve sort of twisted around his timeline, see. Probably better that way. Keeps the universe from exploding.”

Rose surveyed Os wearily. “You travelled with him?” Adrenaline was keeping the sadness of hearing the Doctor’s name at bay, but it wouldn’t last forever. Warily, she pulled out two chairs as Os crossed the shop and closed the blinds over the “closed” sign. Os walked back and sat down in the chair across from Rose carefully. 

“Yes. We were really very clever together.” She laughed distantly, a grin curling its finger around the edges of her mouth. 

“Why’d you stop? How’d you know I travelled with ‘im?” Rose finally asked, the questions coming out before any of her other hundreds of questions dying to make their way from her mouth.

Os grinned ruefully. “Energy readings. Only just did them- well, mostly they just went off randomly yesterday and I pinpointed it to you just an hour ago as you went out. Something else is trying to hone in on your energy, so it’s doing a fair bit of work for my scans upstairs.” She chewed her lip. “Pretty sure the Doctor’s trying to find out where a ton of artron energy is originating out of nowhere. And I’m pretty sure it’s you. Was you.” Os’s eyes were unashamedly curious, inviting Rose to speak up on just _how_ it had been her. 

Rose looked away. That was bad. She supposed that she should have realized that regenerating and travelling dimensions wasn’t something that just happened easily, but the idea that the Doctor could be tracing her down when she didn’t want- wasn’t ready- wouldn’t _ever_ be ready to be found was disconcerting. A coil of unease and nausea curled into her stomach. The Doctor’s intense eyes, full of grief and age, flickered behind her eyes for a moment before she blinked them away.

Os continued after studying Rose softly for another moment, answering her second question. Rose was grateful for the change of topic. She didn’t know how to respond. She wasn’t ready to think about it.

“I died a hundred thousand deaths, but couldn’t stop that last one. A bit annoying, honestly.”

Rose blinked, sitting down in the chair across from Os and studying her, shoving back her nausea and trying to focus on the influx of new information. “You don’t look much dead to me.”

“Here.” Os stuck out her wrist with a flourish, and Rose looked at it blankly for a moment as Os shook it in her face. “Find the pulse, then.”

Rose lifted two fingers to Os’s wrist in slow, cautious movements. After a moment, she frowned and shifted her fingers to the right, but to no avail. “You don’t have a pulse.”

Os snorted. “Tell me about it! It’s awful messy. I don’t have to breathe, or sleep, or eat, really. I have no idea how I’m still walking. Time Lords, I swear.”

Against her will, an echo of a grin ghosted its way past Rose’s mouth. “Sounds like something I would say.” 

Os caught her eye with a smile. “Yeah.” She sighed again, eyes weary. 

“What’d he do to you?” Rose asked quietly, fiddling her fingers against her own wrist where her tattoo lay inked in white across her pulsepoint, a pulsepoint still very much active and alive. 

“Did it to myself, mainly,” Os returned. “Took a risk for a friend that resulted in my own death. Assumed there was a plan.” She looked wryly down at her hands. “There wasn’t, for once. Didn’t stop the stupid idiot, though.” Her smile was soft, at odds with the harsh words. 

Rose was silent. 

“He travelled all the way back to Gallifrey and waited billions of years in order to save me. I’m frozen between one heartbeat and my last. Time Lord trick. Once I go back to Gallifrey, I’ll be stuck right back into my timestream. I’ll die. He’ll watch me.”

“Gallifrey?” Rose breathed, voice cracking. “You travelled with him before the Time War, didn’t you.” 

Os laughed shortly. “No.” Rose opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Os took a breath and expelled it loudly. “He saved Gallifrey, in a way. Bit complicated. Very clever. Part me.” 

Rose opened her mouth, and behind her eyes flashed her ninth doctor’s face as his eyes grew impossibly sad and self-loathing. Her tenth doctor’s face when he mentioned home. 

“He saved it?” she whispered, voice trembling.

“In a way.” Os looked at her hands. She was silent a moment. “My name isn’t Os.”

Rose breathed out, any leftover panic being replaced by extreme calm in the wake of too much new information. “Why have you been lying about yourself? Is there anything about you I can trust? What do you mean, “in a way?”” 

Os met her eyes, unafraid. “I know just as well that you’ve been hiding things. Just as many, if not more. Just now, your eyes turned bright gold. It wasn’t a fluke of the light or anything. You barely respond to the name Lisa. What’m I supposed to think?” She looked away from Rose a moment, then, “Gallifrey is his story to tell.”

Rose breathed out.

Neither of them spoke for a moment, and then both of them spoke at the same time. “My name is Rose.”

“I’m Clara.”

Rose buried her face in her hands, taking a deep breath. The ball was rolling now, and she may as well roll with it.

“I’m a mutation of vortex and artron energy. I’ve regenerated since bein’ exposed to too much of it ‘n going a bit mad with power. Regeneration - ‘s like when you change into-” she paused. Os -Clara- was nodding. You know what regeneration is?” 

“Yeah. I was there for one. Bit much. Wasn’t quite expecting it, really,” she looked a bit like she was reliving it in that moment.

Rose shook her head. “He isn’t much good at explaining beforehand. Bit terrifying, honestly.” 

The two of them shared a half-grin.

“But as I - I can’t age. Or, I can age, but I don’t look it. Still look about in my twenties, latest. Don’t know when I stopped agin’, really, but ‘s been a couple centuries now. I-” Rose looked away. It didn’t seem fair that the pain of losing the Doctor could still feel so raw, so long after it had happened. 

“I wanted- I wanted to stay with ‘im. Tried my best. In the end, got pulled into another dimension. It was either save me or keep the universe together. Not much of a choice.” Rose smiled wryly. 

Clara’s eyes were distant, but more importantly they were full of empathy. “Duty of care,” she murmured. “Do the hard thing when no one else will.”

“You sound like ‘im. Clever ‘n all.” Rose examined Clara, her brown hair curled gently around her shoulders, eyes serious but lively. “What’s your story, then?”

Clara leaned back a bit. “I’ve lived a thousand different lives with the Doctor in some way. Can’t remember them all some days. Saved his life by splitting mine to a billion pieces. Spread myself through all space and time - his history. Helped him steal his Tardis.” Her brow wrinkled. “I think. Can’t always quite remember.” She paused. “Always told him to be clever. And to keep running. Stay kind. To not bring down the sky when I died.”

Rose could hear her own heartbeat in her ears, and the lack of Clara’s was almost audible. 

“He needs that,” she finally whispered sincerely, for lack of anything else to say. “Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me,” Clara smiled quietly. “It was always worth it. I don’t think- I don’t think he always knew when to stop. He walks the line between old and kind and old and desperate with a sort of finesse that not even he can handle. Doesn’t always know when to stop. Doesn’t- shouldn’t be alone, is all.”

Rose licked her lips. “The universe is his backyard. ‘S stuff. Doesn’t hold the same charm it used to for him. He’s so old, O- Clara. An’ after a while, when he’s all alone, the stars grow cold to ‘im and the grief is too much.” She looked past Clara’s eyes, seeing memories in the space behind her head. “There’s only so much you can lose. But then there’s you lot-” her eyes flicked to Clara, and she smiled apologetically a second later. “Humans, that is. Don’t know if you really qualify, actually.” Rose shook her head and continued. “Bringing us - well, companions- along? It’s his way of seeing the universe again, by seeing it through their eyes. Seeing how beautiful it is. It helps him. Grounds him. Reminds ‘im why he’s fighting for everyone in it.” 

Clara crossed her legs. “It was a bit selfish, sometimes,” she digressed. “Sometimes, I wasn’t there as a friend. I was there as a companion, just a buffer between him and the fire at the end of the universe. Sometimes I was both.” She licked her lips with a smile. “Sometimes I was just too busy saving his life that I didn’t know what I was to him. Sometimes I can’t even remember.” She sighed. “But nomatter how clever I am, or how much I help, I’m not worth more than the universe. I can’t be so selfish as to think that the Doctor should choose friendship over the end of the world. The Doctor is a million stars. I’m the girl wondering if the stars stare back.”

There was a pain in Rose’s heart that she couldn’t identify. There was so much of the Doctor now that she didn’t know. So much of him that she’d missed, and wouldn’t know. He was out there fighting for the world, pulling himself closer to the world through its people, keeping himself kind. A duty of care. 

“‘S not selfish to wonder if someone loves you back,” she finally responded,

(And I suppose, if it’s my last chance to say it-)

“In the end, hope is all we have, innit. If we don’t have hope, there’s no love. And without love, there’s nothin’ worth fighting for. Companionship, or no.” Rose stopped again, mouth dry. “He loves us all. Everyone he’s ever travelled with. So much, I think, that his heart bleeds from the weight of it.”

Clara reached across and grabbed Rose’s hand, tilting her head to meet Rose’s eyes. 

“I know.” 


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor spun around in a chair near the console, and her thought process was almost visible, tumbling over itself in the air in front of her eyes.It was unfettered in a way that wasn’t usual. 

Bad Wolf was on her mind, so it made sense, in a twisted sort of way.

Rubbing the heels of her hands into her eyes, she twisted the chair around again, tilting her chin up to the ceiling of the Tardis with tired eyes. 

Her three companions were asleep, and honestly, she was almost thankful. 

How was she supposed to move on? Her fingers stuttered in the air in front of her helplessly, grasping towards the console before her fists landed dully on the metal. 

“How do you expect me to keep moving on?” the Doctor asked the ceiling, shaking her head and standing up, pushing away from the chair in an abrupt movement. 

“How do you expect me to keep- to keep moving.” She sighed, a stuttering sort of thing that caught its edges in her lungs.

“I can show them a billion stars,” her mouth twisted, “I can show them the ends of the universe. The galaxies, right now- right now!” she drove her finger into the air in front of her as if impaling an invisible universe, “destroying themselves, collapsing inwards.” She released her fist, laughing unkindly. “Show them the cracks of time and space slamming into eachother and healing. Show them- show them themselves, reflected in thousands of stars and billions of eyes.” 

She swallowed past the crack in her voice. “And you show me this,” she whispered. “You take me here.”

Her aimless walking took her to the doors of the Tardis, and she pushed them open with a gentle hand, letting them swing open to reveal the Tardis’ angular tilt towards a supernova, moving in slow motion. Stardust flickered past her outstretched fingers, and she reached out and felt the warmth of a dying star underneath her hand. 

“You know,” she swallowed again. “You know what they cost me. What they still do, cost me.” 

She paused, eyes searching the doorframe. 

“ _I_ know what they all have cost me!” Her voice was desperate. “Surely - I could understand, I could understand that you would take me there- take me to her, - to take me to _any_ of them- - if I had forgotten. If I had forgotten what it meant to be _good,_ to be _kind._ ” She licked her lips, letting out a tragic sort of breathy laugh. 

“But I’m-” she collapsed against the right side of the door frame, one leg dangling out into the vast emptiness of space. “I don’t understand,” she whispered, sliding down the doorframe to the floor, fingers loose on either side of her, hair bunched up behind her on the frame like a scraggly halo. “I want to keep them in my hearts. They’re _always_ with me.” She drove a finger into the grating. “But I can’t-” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I can’t stand it. Can’t stand to revisit this!”

There was no reply from the Tardis, just the gentle drift of a quiet blue box through space. 

The Doctor stumbled to her feet, heartbeats thrumming through her skin. 

“No more,” she started. “Please, no more. No more Bad Wolf. No more -” her breathing was unsteady, and it hitched as she stared at the console. “I can’t- I’m not- You can’t ask me to have to move on- to _try_ and move on- again.” She paused. “ _Again_.” 

The silence was quiet and calm, a stark contrast to the woman within it. 

The Doctor approached the console, fingers drifting along levers and switches and strange, circular gears. When she spoke again, her voice was thready, quiet, and laced with a sort of resigned desperation. 

“Please.” 

* * *

“You said this would be fun!” yelled Rose, eyes bright and mouth wide in a laugh. 

“Isn’t it?” cried Clara back, legs speeding up as they ran. She cast a glance behind her, and Rose grinned, tongue between her teeth, willing her legs to catch her up to Clara. 

“You can’t say you didn’t miss this!” 

“I didn’ say anything about not missin’ it!” Rose replied, a laugh catching itself in her lungs.

Three hours earlier, Clara had shaken Rose awake with a bright shout, grinning down at her through a curtain of hair. “Ready to see something?” she had said, eyes dancing. Rose had blearily followed her into her room, which seemed different now that Rose understood the lack of a bed. To her surprise, Clara headed straight for the back of the room to the door Rose had only recently not decided to open because ‘Os was trusting and normal.’ 

Shaking her head and grinning, she stepped through the door when Os opened it for her and then immediately stopped, feet stuttering to a stop. 

Clara, in front of her, dressed in a red dress with a black collar and hair done up in a twisty sort of bun, turned around, bouncing up and down with her eyebrows up, looking at Rose expectantly. She gestured around herself with an excited little shimmy.

“Is this…” Rose trailed off, looking over the console and the walls with wide eyes.

“A Tardis?” Clara continued for her, voice excited. “Yes! It’s a Tardis!” She rounded the console with a long, ecstatic gait, ducking around the levers and gears and switches with an ease that spoke of practice. 

“You have a Tardis,” Rose continued, voice flat with disbelief. “He let you have a Tardis?”

Clara laughed. “‘Course not,” she replied. “Nicked it, really.” 

Rose stood there, astounded, for several moments, before she burst out into incredulous laughter, eyes wide and shocked as she grinned so hard it felt her face might fall off. 

“‘N you- you travel places?” she asked after a moment, walking around the console to take everything in, eyes scanning the console, the ceiling, and how perfectly Clara’s hands traced the buttons, like she was talking with an old friend. “Wait- is this whole place a Tardis, then? I suppose that’s how you wrapped ‘round the Doctor’s timeline, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Clara retorted breathily, her face captured by a smile, which flickered slightly. “But I use it to travel, too. To all places. All sorts.” She shrugged a shoulder. “May as well, you know. Save the planet. Help some people. Doesn’t save itself.” Her body language shifted infinitesimally, but Rose noticed. “And I was thinking that since you know now- like, _know_ know, maybe you’d want to come. Walk the stars.” She looked at Rose expectantly, biting her lip and grinning.

Rose’s mind was going so fast that she was surprised it hadn’t just fallen apart. 

“Do you have something in mind?” she asked finally, coming to stand across from Clara.

“Well,” Clara began, her smile threatening to take over her face. “Owe a debt to this really awful president of an up and coming planet- well, according to him. We both know he’s wrong, but I play nice- because even though he’s a bit stupid, not to mention rude, he’s good for his people. Recently,” she shifted a gear up and pulled down a lever, reaching across the console to flick a switch. The Tardis whooshed into motion, and Rose steadied herself on the console, marvelling at the smooth travel, the fact that she was in a _Tardis_ \- 

“Recently,” Clara continued, smoothing her hair down with a hand, “he’s lost his bodyguard. A sort of friend of his- he saved it from its people a while back, and they’re close as brothers. However, he suspects foul play,and it looks like there’s a group of guards that want to get to him through his bodyguard, so he’s asked for my help to find him. She reached into a satchel around her shoulder and pulled out a cube. Rose squinted at it, as if it would make more sense under scrutiny.

“Containment cube. The bodyguard’s a sort of shadow creature, and this will secure him so we can get him back to the president. He’s probably confused and scared and prone to attack, according to the president. He also suspects he’s been shipped to Corasill, a group of meteors with a legendary black market - incredibly small market, incredibly rare items.” Clara licked her lips and stuck the cube back into the satchel. “Wasn’t given much detail. Probably should have asked.” she shrugged. “Not too worried. Should be quick. But I figured,” she smiled at Rose, “you might want to come. I can take you back if you don’t,” she continued, but Rose shook her head.

“Can never say no to the stars,” she whispered, grinning.

And now here they were. They rounded the corner of a building and huddled together as if they shared the same instincts, and traded glances before laughing, Rose trying to muffle her laughter with a fist while Clara grinned, flipping her hair over one shoulder and digging through her side bag, pulling the strangely colored cube and tossing it around the corner. Seconds later, a shadowy form swept by their corner and disappeared into the cube, and Rose ran out into the street to pick it up, cradling it gently in her hands and peering down into its glassy midsts. 

“Hey, ‘s okay, I promise,” she soothed. “Me ‘n Clara are getting you back to your planet soon, and in the meantime you get to just rest, alright?” She turned the cube over in her hands gently, then grinned brightly at Clara. “It worked,” she enthused, smiling. 

“‘Course it did!” Clara replied, lifting an impertinently amused eyebrow. “And now we’re going to take it right back to Asteros XI- I’m dying to see his face, honestly. He thought it’d be impossible” She screwed up her face in a vague impression of Asteros’ XI’s president, and Rose laughed. 

“Nothin’s impossible,” she returned, and Clara snatched up the cube with a curl of her lips, turning to the entrance of the building they had just been crouching behind. She opened its door and made an ‘after you,’ gesture, shooing Rose in and closing the door behind them. 

The sterile white glow of Clara’s Tardis greeted them within, and Clara rounded the console eagerly, pulling down a knob and arranging several levers with a wry smile and intelligent dark eyes. Next to her, Clara set down the cube, patting it lightly with her hand. “Stay put now- we’re heading right back to your home. No mischief,” she scolded, smiling up at Rose.

“Off we go!” she then cried, and Rose felt the push of take off, staying herself on the wall next to her and then walking over to the console, running her hand across its humming surface and turning to Clara, resting her palms on the console and curling her fingers into a groove. Clara leaned forwards on the console across from her, hands in her palms and elbows leaning against a switchboard. She studied Rose carefully. “You’re handling this well, you know.” 

Rose shifted, and Clara raised her eyebrows. “I know it’s a lot at once- are you doing alright?”

Rose grinned. “I missed this so, so much, Clara. Well, this - and him. But-” she tilted her head, smiling ruefully. “I can’t go back to him. Knowing that I can go back to the universe? The stars?” She huffed a hair out of her eyes. “It’s not too much, Clara.” She shook her head incredulously. “I can’t get enough!” She smiled softly, gazing around Clara’s Tardis, tongue touching her teeth. 

Clara’s dark eyes followed her. “Why won’t you go back to him?” she asked, finally, leaning back from the console. 

Rose shook her head, smiling, and turned her gaze to her hands. After a moment, she lifted her face to meet Clara’s, a soft smile still on her face. 

“I’ve changed, Clara.” She looked around at the white walls of the Tardis, comforted by the soft whooshing of air as they landed on the planet. “He’s changed. I’ve heard as much from you.” Her eyes unfocused. “The memories I have of ‘im now- he’s laughing with me. He’s holdin’ my hand. We’re running, and we’re so- in tune. The Doctor I knew was all but born with his hand in mine.” Her eyes refocused again, but her smile stayed distant, curling softly in the edges. “If I stay back from him, I don’t have to see what _I’ve_ become in ‘is eyes. Don’t have to see what _he’s_ changed into, that he doesn’t know me anymore. I’m sure he’d-” she huffed. “Put up a front for me. You know how he is. Doesn’t want to let a single person down. Every single person he can’t help- whether he had anything to do with their sufferin’ or not- he has them in his head, and they hurt ‘im. But fronts don’t last forever. ” 

She met Clara’s eyes. “I’ve been in ‘is head, makin’ ‘im suffer, for a thousand years. How can I presume to look ‘im in the eye and try and have us be what we were.” She shook her head. “I’ve hurt him for more years then I ever was there to love ‘im.” 

There was a pregnant pause as Rose opened her mouth. “I can’t add to his pain. Won’t let myself. Maybe I’m - I know ‘m selfish, too. That’s why.” She shifted, letting her words settle in the air, selfish enough to avoid Clara’s eyes, to avoid whatever she saw there. “Fair’s fair, then. Why don’t you go tell him you’re alive, for a bit, at least?”

Clara tilted her head. “‘Because I’ll die,” she replied. “Even now, I’m heading towards death. I’m not cruel. I couldn’t do that to him. The moment he saw me, he’d know I still had to die. He needs the chance to move on. Save the universe.” She took a deep breath in, and exhaled slowly. “And I’m bad for him,” Clara continued, and her eyes were very sad. “He grew so close to me that instead of becoming a buffer between him and the fire at the end of everything, I was creeping closer- far too close to be safe-to _being_ the fire at the end of everything. Or, at least, the cause. Do you know how hard it is,” Clara’s voice broke, her normally bright eyes sparking with tears, “to have to stay back from someone because if you’re together, even a moment more, you’ll tear the world apart?”

Rose blinked back tears. “You know I do,” she returned. Her voice trembled. “Every moment, Clara. Every time I so much as try ‘n close my eyes, I see him. See his face as he turns away and flies off in his stupid blue box and never looks back, because if he looks back at me he knows he’ll tear the universe apart to stay by me. Every single companion he ever has, he has to leave ‘m before they turn so much into his universe that he would destroy anything to keep them by his side. It’s a balance,” Rose felt a tear trail down her cheek and wiped it away with a sleeve, “balance of loving ‘im, and saving him from himself. Saving the universe, and saving the Doctor.” 

Clara pursed her lips, squinting a moment, shaking her head as if to shake away the glimmer in her eyes. “Tell you what,” she announced, rounding the console. “What do you say we sit down over some Asterosian ice cream, ‘kay?” 

Rose shook herself, forcing a smile on her face. “Sounds good,” she agreed, and Clara shook her head.

“I’m not trying to move on from this conversation, Rose.” She approached her. “Never. Just, I think you’re incredibly brave- just as brave now, as you’ve _ever_ been- and old, and maybe you’ve forgotten how much the Doctor _loves._ ” She paused. “Love never ends.”

Rose opened her mouth, and Clara reached out a finger and quirked an eyebrow, placing her finger over Rose’s mouth and quirking a brow. Her eyes were soft. “I’m not trying to make you go back.” Rose deflated. “Not right now, at least,” Clara continued, and Rose’s mouth quirked halfheartedly. Clara opened her mouth to continue, but seemed to decide against it. Suddenly, Rose had an armful of Clara, her arms coming to rest around Roses neck. Something in Rose’s chest broke off and slotted into place- something she hadn’t even noticed had been missing. She let her arms curl back up around Clara’s, and closed her eyes. They stood like that for a moment. 

“Venusian ice cream, then?” Clara said after a moment, distangling herself. Rose grinned, and it felt real on her face, tongue touching the back of her teeth. “Sure thing,” she responded, and Clara smiled brightly, twining their hands together and pulling her to the door, grabbing the cube off the console as they went, the door clicking shut behind them as the entire bakery warped and rearranged itself and disappeared entirely from the street.

* * *

The Doctor was unusually silent when Graham padded into the main room. She was laid out across the floor in a strange arrangement of limbs, eyes distantly focused past the ceiling. Graham glanced up, seeing nothing. 

He pressed himself into a chair discarded haphazardly to the side of the console, watching her with careful eyes for several long moments. When she finally spoke, she seemed to sort through a variety of possibilities to explain herself- excuses, lies, half-truths, jokes- Graham watched them flicker across her face like repeating shocks of lightning, before she sighed, tilting her head to face him. She was silent. 

“Feelings?” Graham asked, voice not unkind. 

The Doctor huffed out a laugh, pressing her palms into the floor and pushing herself up to a sitting position, propping her arm up on one bent knee. She didn’t respond. 

“You’re resilient, Graham,” she answered instead, several moments later. “You keep moving.” She squinted behind him. “You grieve, but you don’t let it,” she gestured around with her hands as if to illustrate her point, “weigh you down.” Something glimmered in her eyes, and she shoved herself off the ground completely. “Good trait to have, that.”

She seemed almost back to normal, and it sat with Graham oddly. Her movements weren’t quite smooth, her eyes not quite back from wherever distant galaxy they were inhabiting, yet her face seemed to be trying to move past whatever moment of raw, unfettered emotion he had just seen in its eyes.

“Sure,” he responded carefully, keeping his voice light and even. “Seems that way, doesn’t it?”

The Doctor looked him over from where she now stood behind the console, illuminated by buttery-yellow soft lights. She said nothing, watching him. 

“Some days, I’m not sure I’m not just running.” He smiled wryly. “Trying to run, really.” He half-nodded, trying to meet the Doctor’s eyes when they flicked away from his. 

“It doesn’t seem fair that grief should be able to keep up with me.” He couldn’t help the emotion that crept into his tone. “I’m travelling billions of miles away from my home.” He shook his head, gesturing at the Tardis. “Thousands of years into the future. Into the past. I’m travelling in time- I’ve travelled to placeswhen my sadness wasn’t born yet, because I didn’t even exist.” He chuckled dryly. “Still can’t outrun it. Course, I don’t know much of what you’re feeling, Doc.” He looked away from her, finally, away from her piercing eyes full of too much knowledge. Much too much empathy. “It’s like you said. Keep people - Grace- in my heart. What she would have said. What she would have done. The way she would have smiled at Ryan. The way she would have smiled at me.” He smiled nostalgically. “Doesn’t seem like enough, always. So I hope that one day, it will be.” 

“You know more than you think, Graham,” the Doctor said after a long moment, and seemed to deliberate saying more before she closed her mouth. Her eyes focused on a small gear as she slid it up the console and then reached around to pull down some sort of band and attach it to a lever, which she then moved to cross over the gear’s previous position. 

They were both quiet, and when the Tardis slid back onto Earth, Graham sat and watched the Doctor work as golden morning light filtered into the console room, silence passing the time more companionably than conversation. 

* * *

“ _Not_ for me,” Clara enthused, making a face and pushing the ice cream smoothie to Rose, ripping off the top of another Asterosian straw with her teeth and handing it to over. Rose rolled her eyes, plucking the straw from Clara’s hand and sticking it into the yellowish sludge. She took a cautious sip before making a face. “Oh god, you’re right,” she replied, laughing even as she covered her mouth with her hand and grimaced. “That’s awful. Is this even ice cream?” she tilted the label towards herself and squinted. 

“Clara!” Clara peered over at Rose, and her eyes brightened as she laughed. “‘S some sort of custard!” 

“I ordered ice cream,” Clara insisted with a grin, “really! They must’ve replaced it with custard because they thought we wouldn’t know the difference. Cheapskates.”

Rose laughed, and pushed the custard back to the middle of the table next to the cube, which was glowing excitedly. “Time to get this one home, then,” Clara decided, and she picked it up with one hand and then grabbed the still half-full custard with another, shaking it mock-menacingly at the vendor as she passed him to place the jar into the waste receptacle. The man blanched and gave a wave of apology, and Rose snorted, giving him a smile as they passed.

They made their way to the capital slowly, talking about all manner of things, and approached the gates only to be stopped by a guard, a human-looking man with dark eyes. 

“Stop,” he intoned flatly, and Clara narrowed her eyes. 

“We’re here on orders from the president,” Rose explained carefully, keeping in mind Clara’s earlier warning about the guards. “We have something to return to ‘im. If you could escort us in, we’d be-”

“You’ve found it?” The guard asked, eyes widening. Clara’s expression changed to suspicious, and Rose felt a twinge of excitement flicker through her,which she scolded herself for immediately.

“Found what?” Clara asked with a raised eyebrow, meeting the guard’s black eyes without flinching. 

“The-” he paused and lowered his breath. “The creature.” 

“He told us that no one knew about it,” Rose intoned suspiciously. “What-”

In a flash of movement, the guard snatched the cube from Clara’s hand, where she had been slowly putting it back into her bag, and in a split second had broken into a run, tunic flying behind him. “Stop that right now!” Clara cried indignantly, both of them knowing full well that he was most definitely _not_ going to be stopping without a chase. As he grew further away, Clara sighed and turned to Rose, eyes bright with excitement even though her face was annoyed. “I’ll chase him,” she suggested. “Down by the ice cream spot is the police office- meet you round there in twenty?”

Rose grinned. “‘Course.” The two separated, and Clara took off after the man, gaining on him quickly. “Oi!” Clara yelled after him. “It’s not very nice to take a lady’s things!”

The guard sped up, and Clara huffed, lengthening her stride. “If that’s the way you want to play it,” she muttered. 

The guard lept onto a structure taking him to the second level of the city, and Clara clambered after him, their chase starting again, this time on the metal grating of Asteros’ second level.

Asteros, like some of the more newly inhabited planets still figuring out an optimal use of space for their inhabitants, used a three level grid system for their living. The first level was ground level - houses, businesses, the like. The second was for transportation. Wickedly fast trains sped from all corners of Asteros using their own level of the city to increase timeliness and minimize stalling. It was, for the most part, quite open. There were a few open parks for citizens to walk in, but for the most part the second level of Asteros was composed of criss-crossing train tracks, train stations with brightly colored logos, display billboards demonstrating departure and arrival times, and endless metal grating and machinery. Huge expanses of strategically placed emptiness ensured that the inhabitants of the first level were able to see large pieces of the sky no matter their location, a strategy supplemented by hundreds of additional lights on the ground level. The third level was only accessible to politicians and visiting embassies - it covered only three miles of Asteros in total, and was mainly offices and conference areas for governmental officials. It was also hard to access- it was in the area of outer space immediately surroundings Asteros’ airspace. 

Clara grinned as she noticed the guard heading towards a large piece of machinery on top of thin metal grates. That area was, according to the map of Asteros’ first level that she had studied several weeks before, directly above the law enforcement station where Rose was currently explaining their situation to the police force. 

The guard seemed to suddenly realize he was cornered between Clara and the machinery, and he spun around, cube dangling from one hand as he pulled out a large, rod like weapon from his tunic. He stabbed it towards her with a wild look on his face. Clara sighed at him, and his hand trembled. 

“Look, I really don’t want to hurt you,” Clara encouraged, raising her hands in a placating manner. 

“Back off, birdy,” rebutted the man, his voice breathy and harsh. His cheeks were flushed with exertion, his eyes bright and angry. He half-dropped the containment cube, but caught it again with the tips of his fingers. In a flash of movement, Clara walked the three steps over to him, kicked him hard in the side, and disarmed him. He managed to twist the cube away from her and retreat several paces, and she huffed a piece of hair out of her face.

“Careful!” Clara remarked indignantly. “Oi, that was a very expensive cube. Don’t want to go to the trouble of buying another one, or for that matter, try to catch and return _another_ priceless alien.” 

The man looked confused, looking from her to the cube in his hand back to her face. Clara’s eyes narrowed in warning, the sort of expression one might wear when telling a dog to drop a shoe. “That’s right, drop it!” She responded, stabbing her stick at him in the manner of a scolding schoolteacher. “I won’t say it again!” 

“She really won’t,” Rose added, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as the man lept around with a yelp of fright to find her nose to nose with him. He sputtered in surprise at her sudden appearance, and Rose shook her head, lifting a disappointed eyebrow.

“You should see what she did to the man who tried selling us custard instead of ice cream earlier because he thought we were tourists. I mean, we were, but-”

Clara had approached the man from behind and grabbed the cube delicately from his fingers. 

“Ta!” Rose cried happily. “Thanks much!” 

The man sputtered. “Listen hear, you crazy broads- Asteros will fall! You’re only delaying the inevitable, you crazy-”

“Don’t think I like that tone, mind,” Clara interrupted, scrunching her face up. “Learn to speak nicely to women while you’re in a cell, eh? You’ll have a good long while to deliberate.” With that she kicked the lever by her foot, and with a wiggle of her fingers, the square of grating he was balancing on collapsed, sending the man hurtling down to the aggravated Asterosian police force down below, who caught him before he could finish his twelve foot fall. “Goodbye!” Rose called, leaning over the hole in the grating. 

“And here you are. You have returned him safely,” the president spoke, twisting the cube in his hands before tapping out a code onto its side. It split open, and the shadowy beast from before erupting into a cloud of twisting smoke, curling around the president protectively. “They call you the Impossible One,” he said to Clara. “I had thought that this, however, was truly impossible.”

“Nothin’s impossible,” Rose huffed. “Besides. Clara doesn’t ever give up.”

“One of my flaws,” Clara inserted, not looking sorry at all, but tilting her head in mock apology. 

The president studied them, deliberating. 

“You’re released from your debt,” he intoned, finally, and Clara nodded shortly, snorting. An armed guard, who had before been standing on the edge of the room, approached them. 

“My high guard will escort you back to your ship. Please, for the love of the Urarthran, stay off of this planet.”

With that he dismissed them with a wave of his hand, and Rose fought a giggle at his imperious smugness when she caught Clara’s half-aborted eyeroll. As soon as they reached the Tardis and were safely in orbit, Clara stuck her hand into her satchel with a grin and pulled out the guard’s weapon, shaking it at Rose. “Back off or I’ll getcha,” she teased, and then tossed it through the console room so that it landed in the corner in a pile of various detritus.

She shook her head. “I’ve got to sort through that at some point.” She turned back to Rose, and her gaze grew considering. 

“I’m glad you came,” she smiled. “Would you come again?”

Rose bit her lip with a half smile. “Yeah,” she agreed after a moment. “Walk the stars, eh?”

“Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/16Cb0LEbsF6Oo3an1HI2gO) here is my current playlist for writing this story. you can also find me at lifesitself on tumblr. :) have a fantastic day!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How do we track a smell into a building that doesn’t exist then, Doctor?” He asked, puzzled. “We can’t just _smell_ the bricks and make a building appear, now.”
> 
> “Actually,” the Doctor returned smugly, “that’s sort of exactly what we’re about to do, so don’t get too excited.”
> 
> Ryan sighed.

_“I’m not leaving you! I’m not-”_

Rose sat straight up in bed, flipped her legs over the side and stood up, shaking herself out of her dream vigorously.

Absolutely not. She was not going to start a day reliving some nightmarishly warped version of a different one. Especially not- _that_ one. 

“You coming?” Came Clara’s voice from down the stairs, and Rose opened her mouth, tried to speak, frowned, cleared her throat, and tried again. 

“Yeah, one mo’!” she called back, throwing open her closet, which had grown slightly larger after yesterday’s post-Asteros shopping trip. She pulled on a pair of jeans, jumping up and down to get her legs all the way in, and pulled down her pajama shirt from where it had ridden up, descending the stairs quickly. 

“I’m up,” she insisted, and Clara raised her eyebrow at her from where she was bent over at the counter, cutting dough into neat shapes in order to roll them into properly shaped croissants. She hummed at Rose, gesturing to the sink as she stuck a spoon into the front pocket of her apron.

“Do you mind just cleaning that one up a bit?” She asked, shooting Rose an energetic smile. Rose thought that it was _much_ too early to have a smile so ridiculously chipper. “The mixing bowl in the sink, that is. Got it all dirty and haven’t gotten around to cleaning it yet. And,” Clara dumped several utensils into the sink with a clatter, “also folding up the croissants. I’m running a bit behind on them. Daydreaming or something.”

“‘Course,” Rose replied, rolling up the sleeves of her 32nd century blue sleep shirt and grabbing an apron from the rack behind the door. Tying it around her waist with a sharp twist, she drifted over to the sink and pulled on the tap, letting the water warm up under her fingers. 

The sharp edges of her dream lingered cruelly on the edges of her mind, and she picked up the potato-shaped scrub brush from behind the sink and started trying to transmit her frustration out of her head and into the tarnished metal of the dough-covered mixing bowl with heavy brushstrokes. 

She could feel Clara’s eyes on her as she rinsed the bowl clean and hand dried it. 

“Don’ wanna talk much,” she finally sighed, turning around. Clara was ridiculously perceptive. “Just a bad dream, is all. Should have expected it, after yesterday.” She grinned, quicksilver and smooth as butter, at Clara. “Wouldn’t take it back for a moment though.”

Clara smiled softly at her. “It’s most always like that. And you’ve got a pass to come whenever you like, got it?”

“Yeah? You mean it?”

“Course! Can’t travel all the stars by myself, can I? I know they’re as much a part of you as they are of me, even if you don’t let on. You and him- keep so much locked away in that big head of yours, I can’t always tell what you’re thinking.” She smiled ruefully. “I’m an ear if you need one, alright? And a companion, till I make my last stop.”

“Might just take you up on that, then. Every once in a while. I’ve got to get _some_ sleep.” Her tongue touched her teeth. “Not all of us can operate on, well, nothing.” Then she paused. “You really are going back, aren’t you. Back to Gallifrey.”

“Everything comes to an end,” Clara murmured. “But you mustn’t be sad about things while they’re still happening, or else you’re just living your life waiting for an end.” She looked at Rose with a sharp intensity, as if trying to convey through her eyes alone the importance of her point. “And out of all the ways to live, living to die isn’t one of them.” She grasped Rose’s hand. “Live to _live_ , Rose. Live to keep living. Live with hope of life. And someday, when everything ends, it will be _just_ as hard, and _just_ as sad, but it will be worth it. Having lived to live. Having lived a life full of hard, beautiful kindness. A life of living, and living, and living, and love.” 

“You’re awfully clever, then,” Rose sighed after a moment, taking a deep breath. “Not quite over death, myself. And I’m still alive. Just not- who I was.”

“I’m not just smart, I’m brilliant, I am. Impossible, too, didn’t you hear?” Clara’s grin was not at all dimmed by the prospect of death. “Rose, you don’t have to stay the same throughout your whole life to have a life worth living.” Her eyes were painfully wide and earnest. “You aren’t the only person who’s ever had something so life-altering happen to them that they were sure they would never be the same. Doesn’t make you any less, or any less valuable for it, just as it doesn’t make anyone else less valuable to have had something so large and beautiful and terrifying happen to them.”

Rose tilted her head. “How do you do it, then? Move on from death?” In her mind’s eye she could see herself as if in third person, exploding into an inferno of brilliant golden light, eyes glowing with energy. Dying. Living again. A flower in reverse motion, from wilted to standing to bud, over and over and over again.

“It’s a given. I’ve already died, really. Is one heartbeat actually living?” Clara shook her head with a smile. “You don’t have to move on from the reality of dying. You can understand it and accept it and not move on, while still making the most of your life.” She pulled out the wooden spoon from the front of her apron, tossing it towards the sink, where it landed with a clatter.

“If you’re scared, be scared. Fear is a superpower. It makes you quick on your feet.” Her smile was almost fierce.

“If you’re unsure, be unsure. Be unpredictable. Be brilliant.” Clara paused. “My heartbeat’s whatever I make of it, and right now I’m making croissants, understand?”

“Got it,” Rose replied, and the iron fist around her heart unclenched somewhat, releasing its pressure enough to let her mouth smile at Clara, a tender, genuine thing. 

“Good, because these don’t make themselves,” Clara continued. “Go on! Help me roll them up.” 

* * *

It was several hours later that Yasmin, Ryan, Graham, and the Doctor found themselves at the stoop of the impossible building. Rather, they found themselves where the building _had_ been- at the moment, they were looking at a sliver of bricks on the end of a run down furniture store barely large enough to fit Ryan’s hand, had it been outstretched. 

“Well that puts a damper on breakfast,” Graham supplied matter-of-factly. “I’m rather hungry, so if you wouldn’t mind Doc,” 

“I’m coming up with a brilliant plan at this very moment,” replied the Doctor. “It’s so close to being fully formed I can taste it, really, I can.” She licked her lips, staring at the bricks with feverish, manic intensity.

“I - that’s it!” She slammed a hand against her temple with a bright, excited beam towards her little group, and Yasmin winced at the sound of impact. 

“What is?” said Ryan, making a half movement with his hand as if to try and restrain the Doctor from hitting herself over the head again. 

“The smell!” The Doctor explained slowly, as if talking to third graders. Her voice was excited, and without further ado she rounded the building to the back alley, where they had previously stood the day before. Graham, Ryan and Yaz trailed behind her cautiously.

“Do you remember how it smelled back here yesterday?” asked the Doctor, and her three companions traded slightly bewildered looks.

“I suppose,” Ryan confirmed slowly, when it became clear that the Doctor was looking for a response. “Sort of- buttery? Some smoke, maybe?”

“Yes!” the Doctor chirped happily, “exactly that. Fantastic. Now,” she inhaled very loudly through her nose, “smell again. Can you still smell all those smells?”

Yasmin, Graham and Ryan sniffed the air, and although they all looked quite silly, the Doctor was staring at them intensely, as if their answers held the answer to all of life's questions. Yasmin thought that it was rather wonderful to feel as if her opinion really mattered a great deal to someone, even if it were something as silly as whether or not she could smell butter and smoke. 

“Well, yeah, Doctor,” Ryan confirmed, nonplussed. “Back alley today still smells the same as back alley yesterday.”

“Exactly!” cried the Doctor, “and really, I should have thought of this earlier - why didn’t I think of this earlier?- all we have to do is locate the origin of the buttery sort of smell.”

“What do you mean,” asked Yasmin. “How is finding some butter going to help us locate an invisible building?”

“There’s no other bakeries on the flip side of this alley,” the Doctor divulged, as if revealing to them a great and mysterious secret. “Not a single one. There’s no place that the smell could be coming from - unless, of course, my friend from Uyxbraxus is following us rather stealthily, but I think the squishing of his hooves _would_ be a dead give away- if he were, that is- so I don’t think that’s quite plausible. But!” She took a deep breath, preparing to continue, but Ryan interrupted. 

“How do we track a smell into a building that doesn’t exist then, Doctor?” He asked, puzzled. “We can’t just _smell_ the bricks and make a building appear, now.”

“Actually,” the Doctor returned smugly, “that’s sort of exactly what we’re about to do, so don’t get too excited.”

Ryan sighed. 

“What’s the plan then, Doc?” inquired Graham. “Because I’ve got to hand it to you, I’m sure it’s smart, but I’m still hungry, and talking isn’t doing me much good on that front. _Especially_ talking about butter.”

“Wellll,” answered the Doctor, eyes bright as twin stars, “If there’s any way to get out of a place, there’s a way to get _in._ Somehow,” she whipped out her sonic screwdriver with a triumphant wave of her hand, “the smell inside that bakery- which may, now that I think about it, be a _real_ bakery with some nefarious or otherwise intent-”

“No duh,” Ryan whispered,

“Well no need to be _impertinent_ ,” remarked the Doctor with a pout, “what I was _trying_ to say was - if there’s a way _out_ of a place, according to several smart, clever people I know, including-well, namely- myself, there’s, well-”

“What I’d like to know is where the way in is _now,_ if you don’t mind, Doc,” Graham interrupted, knocking on the brick with his knuckles. 

“Give me a moment, why don’t you,” grumbled the Doctor with a pout, eyes sparking with curiosity as she pulled out her sonic and motioned with it as if to pull some invisible wire out of the brick. Nothing happened for a moment, and the Doctor slumped forwards, rolling her eyes heavenwards. “Well _that_ was disappointing-” 

The bakery was quite suddenly there in front of them, its cherry red door visible from where they stood in the back alley.

“That’s more like it!” exclaimed the Doctor, spreading her hands in the air as if greeting a friend. “ _Thank_ you!” she said to the wall, in the tone that one might use with a stubborn child choosing to relinquish something after a great deal of whining. 

“Great, now let’s go in,” Graham decided, rounding the building and pushing open the door. 

“Right then, after him,” the Doctor encouraged, “Hop to it.”

“Is it safe, then?” asked Yaz, even as she walked through the door without complaint. 

The Doctor scoffed. “‘Course not. Where’d be the fun in that?” 

She leaned closer to Yaz, as if she were about to share a secret. “Right now, the timeline feels a bit like squishing around in the mud with my socks.” She crinkled her nose. “Means anything’s possible. And probably not something good.”

“I, for one, am not really big on running for my life too often, if you don’t mind” replied Ryan, glancing at them, and the Doctor gave him a look, as if that were a particularly foolish thing to say. 

“Well we aren’t running yet, are we?” 

Once they were all inside, the Doctor closed the door behind them, inspecting the shop with wide, curious eyes. 

“Hello!” she called towards the back, and there was a muffled curse and a “be with you in a sec!” before a woman with soft looking black curls and large blue eyes came out of the back, the left side of her face streaked with flour. 

“Sorry,” she apologized, “bit of an explosion in the back- one mo’, you’re those folks from yesterday, yeah?” 

The Doctor’s eyes brightened with recognition. “Yeah! Yeah, we are, aren’t we, fam.”

Yasmin suddenly recognized the woman as the one who had come out of the shop yesterday and offered them a discount. Up close, she was almost extraordinarily pretty, with a wide set jaw and a large smile set under expressive eyes and buttery curls.

“Oh yeah,” Ryan agreed, pulling his hands out of his pockets, “you were the one by the alley yesterday. Thanks for the help, by the way- lost without you.”

The woman smiled, and Yasmin noticed the Doctor stiffen and shift to her right. She gave her a glance, and the Doctor felt her gaze and forcibly relaxed. Yasmin’s brow furrowed, but she turned back to the front. 

“Right, well I’m Yasmin. This is Ryan, and this is Ryan’s gramps, Graham, and this is-”

“Jane,” interrupted the Doctor hurriedly, and Yasmin fought to conceal her look of surprise. Behind her, she could see Ryan and Graham trying to do the same. 

“Right, Jane,” Yasmin finished, trying her best to keep her tone even. “Graham was hoping to pop in for a spot of breakfast, and it smelled awfully nice out here the other day, so we were hoping to swing by for a bit of a bite to eat.”

“Right, well I’m Lisa,” offered the woman. “Anythin’ you see that looks good, you let me know, and I’ll wrap it up for you. There’s still some brioche in the back oven, but it won’t be out for a while, so Os is keeping busy with the quiches back there. If you’d fancy one of those, you may have to come back tomorrow- they’re delicious, just take a while for her to whip together.” she gave them a grin. “Anything I can get you to start, then?”

Yasmin bounced up onto her toes to look all the way over the case. “That looks good,” she decided, pointing at a fancily decorated danish “so long as it doesn’t have blackberries, I don’t much fancy them.”

“It’s raspberry and black currant,” Lisa assured, carefully using a pair of silvery tongs to place the danish onto a square of waxy paper and into a bag. “Anything else for you? Are you paying as a group?”

Yasmin opened her mouth to say yes, but the Doctor interrupted her. “What’dyou say, gang?” she asked brightly. “My treat?”

Yasmin looked at her warily, but shrugged in agreement. 

“That’s all, then,” she decided, and Lisa nodded, folding the bag shut and pushing it to the side before opening another bag and looking at the rest of the group expectantly. 

“Right then,” started Graham when the silence drew on, “I’ll have two of the little sandwiches in the back there, and an omelette, if it’s available.” He gave Lisa a pleasant smile, which Lisa readily returned. 

“Sure thing,” she replied. “What do you fancy on it?”

“Little peppers,” interrupted the Doctor. “Loads of the little peppers. Love the little peppers.”

Lisa glanced between them, fiddling her fingers on the strings of her apron. 

“Two omelettes, then?” she asked after a moment, tongue peeking out from between her teeth. 

“Oh, yes, of course,” the Doctor agreed, rocking back on her heels and looking pleased. 

“No peppers on mine, thanks,” Graham continued, seemingly choosing to ignore the Doctor’s interruption. “I’ll have onions,” he paused, looking over a little blackboard labelled ‘Omelette Fixings’ in a fancy script, then continuing slowly, “ham, cheddar, an’ a little spinach. And would you mind putting a danish on the side?” 

Ryan ordered after Graham, choosing a cheesy sort of roll and a danish, and soon enough it was the Doctor’s turn to finish ordering. 

“Well,” considered the Doctor, looking for all the world like she was having the best moment of her life just ordering food from a hidden bakery, “the omelette with the little peppers, and if you don’t mind - just one more thing-” she tilted her head to the side, and suddenly she was quite serious again, “the reason I can’t see this buildin’ from the outside. I’d like to know an awful bit.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Er,” Lisa shifted, tilting her head to the left, gnawing on her lip. “What’dyou mean you can’t-”

Something flittered across her face, too fast for Yasmin to catch, and then she muttered, “oh. Os.” 

Her eyes flicked up to the Doctor’s, and they were a steely and deceptively innocent blue when she responded. “What do you mean, then? ‘S just a shop. You said you were visitin’, right? Maybe you didn’t see-”

The Doctor leaned across the counter, shoving her sleeves up her arms and grinning. “You know why, don’t you?” She replied, “It’s no use lying, honestly. Dead clever, I am, and good with, you know, telling when people are lyin.” 

“Not lyin,” answered Lisa, and her eyes didn’t waver. “Shop’s been here this whole time.”

The Doctor chewed her bottom lip, bouncing back from the counter and squinting her eyes. 

“Maybe for you,” she replied, licking her index finger and sticking it up in the air determinedly before tilting her head to the side. “So you aren’t aware of the sublinear non-chronological timeblock in place over here? Well. The, uh- time-shield-thingy?”

“The sub-what?” muttered Graham, and Ryan shrugged. 

“Made it up just now,” returned the Doctor without turning to face them, “good, isn’t it.”

Yasmin opened her mouth and then closed it.

“‘Course I am,” came the response, and the Doctor’s eyes landed on Lisa once again. Lisa didn’t seem cowed in the least, meeting each of their gazes evenly. “It’s meant to keep out people who’d mean bad news for us. We’re refugees, see,” her eyes flicked to the side, as if expecting someone, “and we’re under protection.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, looking almost excited. “Who’s protection would that be, then?”

For the first time, Lisa faltered, and she looked almost nervous, glancing over her shoulder and focusing on something - someone?- before turning back. 

“His protection.” Lisa took a breath in. “The Doctor’s.”

Yas startled, and Lisa’s gaze flicked to her. Yasmin stared back with a steely gaze, police training coming in full use under the scrutiny, and Lisa’s gaze flicked away again after a long moment.

“The Doctor, eh!” The Doctor cried, sounding particularly pleased and also _definitely_ far too excited. “Well.” Her brow furrowed, but her eyes sparkled. “That complicates things a right bit.”

“You know ‘im?”” asked Lisa, and Yasmin watched as her eyes took on some sort of complicated emotion which looked almost a bit like fear. 

“I- ah-” the Doctor turned slightly to her companions, who all looked a bit lost and unsure of how to respond to that, “He- _he!_ \- he’s my friend, honestly. Go way back, him and me.”

“Oh,” responded Lisa. “Well- he’s protected us, here, and he said ‘e’d guarded us against…” she trailed off lamely. “Stuff. So, if you can’t see us, that means you mean trouble.” She crossed her arms. “What’re you here for, then? Are you-”

The Doctor looked delighted. “Did he now! What a fellow,” she interrupted, and Ryan looked at her incredulously. “Really should get together with him sometime, honestly. Pick his brain.” Her focus sharpened into something of an almost laserlike intensity as she met Lisa’s gaze again. “Since we can’t see you though, and I’m-” she stopped, breathed out slowly, and examined Lisa closely. Lisa shifted her arms, crossing them tighter and giving the Doctor an unimpressed look. It was then that Ryan spoke.

“Uh, Doctor-” he interrupted, “what’s happening here exactly?” 

There was a moment after Ryan asked his question that the world seemed to pause, the dust specks in the light flittering about slowly and ever-golden in the morning light, the glass gleaming soft and cold, a silent sort of warmth. And then there was the next moment, where Ryan’s words seemed to suddenly come crashing down like a thousand tidal waves, and the world was crashing back to full speed, like a train wreck Yasmin had no hope of stopping but _knew_ was about to happen.

And then Lisa was paling so suddenly that she looked sick, as if the world had ripped itself out from under her.

“You’re-” she started, and she sounded like the word had cost her something immensely and immeasurably painful, like even talking now was the equivalent of tearing herself in two.

“You should go,” she suddenly amended, and her tone was tremulous, the effort of shoving whatever emotions she was feeling so painfully _away_ from herself visible behind her face. She shoved the bags of food towards them, stumbling backwards several steps and falling against the counter, knuckles white around the granite. 

“What’s wrong?” asked the Doctor curiously, eyes now full of concern and intrigue. “Why does he scare you?”

“He- you’re” Lisa’s eyes shuttered. “Get out-” her eyes were a blazing, melancholy blue. “Get out, Doctor. Doctor. Get out.” 

“Oi, we’re just here to help,” Yasmin interrupted, a bit affronted for the Doctor. “There’s nothing to be scared of,” she continued, softening her words to soothe. 

“Right on,” Graham continued for her, brow knit in concern. He started to round the counter, and Lisa looked simultaneously like a sort of caged animal and something wild, fiercely powerful, and otherworldly. 

“Get out,” she whispered, and Yasmin could have sworn that for a moment, her brilliant blue eyes glinted a glowing gold, an ancient, swirling sort of color that strummed some tendon deep in her chest.

“Please,” she continued finally, and her voice had broken halfway through the word. 

The Doctor looked mildly concerned, and she raised her hands in surrender without a word before taking a half step forwards, eyes soft and concentrated, each line of her body adjusted to the situation as if she were something that was as old as time itself, adjusted perfectly to the situation, strung up to deliver an age old question. “If the Doctor- me- is protecting you,” she whispered seriously, “why are you so scared, Lisa?”

“I-” Lisa started, and it was like watching a warrior determine something in that moment, like watching iron sharpen iron. “I’m not scared of the Doctor.” She took a deep breath, and something final and undeniably strong slid into place behind her face and eyes. “I’m terrified, Doctor.” 

The Doctor’s gaze didn’t move from hers.

“But _you_ don’t have to be scared, Doctor,” she continued, and her voice was almost soft. “You have nothing to be frightened of here. There’s nothing here that you should ever, ever,” her voice almost cracked, wavering on the edge of something infinitely sad, “fear. My fear?” she looked behind her now, and it became obvious that she was meeting someone’s eyes. “My fear doesn’t make me weak, Doctor. Makes me stronger. Makes me,” her eyes were distant, and the Doctor’s were wide, as if those words had been told to her before, “faster. An’ I’m sorry,” she paused, and Yasmin watched her chest rise and fall. Once, twice. “That it makes me- it _has_ to make me- be faster than you.” 

The Doctor’s brow wrinkled, and then suddenly she was reaching out towards Lisa, eyes widening, but something was shifting in the air, crackling like the Tardis before takeoff, and the door to the shop was thrown open and Yasmin was flying through the air, flying out the door, and landing with a heavy thud on the grassy patch across the way. The shop was starting to flicker and disappear in front of her eyes now, and Yasmin blinked fast, taking it in as best she could and running calculations through her head of what she could possibly do next. 

The Doctor, evidently also thrown out the door, as well as Graham and Ryan, was getting to her feet, and her face was almost desperate as she was suddenly sprinting, sonic in hand, towards the steadily fading building. The building disappeared out of sight with a sort of audible sigh, and the Doctor, twelve feet away, shoved a hand through her chopped hair, before she spun back to face her companions.

“Doctor,” wheezed Ryan, who had followed her just as fast, “who _was_ that?” 

The Doctor looked confused for a moment, her brow wrinkling. “Ryan,” she replied slowly, “I - have no _actual_ idea.” 

Yasmin shifted to face Graham, both of them still lying on the grass. She pushed herself to her feet slowly and extending a hand to him to help him up. He shot her a grateful look. “Really knocked the wind out of me,” he sighed, “bit old for the flying out of shop doors sort of thing.” He gave the spot where the shop had been moments before a longing look. “And I was really hoping for that omelette.” 

Slowly, they made their way over to Ryan and the Doctor, who were both staring at the bricks where the bakery had stood moments ago.

“Well, hate to break it to you, Doc, but it looked like she knew you,” Graham finally said. 

“Uh, I’d say so,” Ryan agreed, glancing at the Doctor, whose gaze was rather far away, as if staring at something invisible and heart wrenching. Suddenly she shook her head, as if clearing it, before coughing and turning to her three companions with a bright grin that looked rather lackluster. 

“Doctor,” started Yasmin cautiously, but the Doctor started on talking like a steamroller, flattening Yaz’s concern with a sort of brutal intent that left Yasmin a bit stung. 

“Really, I have no idea who that could actually be,” the Doctor declared, throwing her hands up in the air, talking so fast it was almost hard to understand her. “Bit like- well, I mean, there’s several _options,_ technically, but none of them make sense, and Arthur Conan Doyle definitely shouldn’t’ve listened to me when I said that ‘whatever remains must be the truth’ nonsense, I mean _honestly-”_

Graham did a double take in her direction and opened his mouth before shaking his head. Yasmin sent up a prayer to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala for patience.

“Doc-” Graham tried, but she continued at a breakneck speed,

“And whatever I saw, really, it was absolutely,” she breathed out, eyes cautious, _“impossible.”_

There was a moment of silence, before Yasmin opened her mouth and spoke quietly, eyes soft and voice slow, “Doctor,” she started, “who did you see?”

The Doctor didn’t meet her eyes, fiddling with her sonic screwdriver and staring at her clasped hands. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, a soft thing that was fond and old and sad. “My impossible girl,” she murmured, and the silence stretched on for several long moments. 

“What, the- Lisa? Was Lisa your- impossible girl? Who’s-” Ryan cut himself off, brow knitting as he looked towards the Doctor in question.

The Doctor shook her head. “The one behind her,” she replied, turning to face them, and her frame expanded as she took a stabilizing breath. “There was a girl behind her. First one- Lisa, that is- kept looking back. And towards the end-” her mouth drew a frustrated line across her face. “I could have sworn I saw her.”

“Who’s the ‘impossible girl,’ Doc?” asked Graham, softly. 

The Doctor turned to him, eyes desperate, manic, her face trying to stretch into a smile that looked waxen on her features in the golden light. 

“Who am I without her,” replied the Doctor, tilting her head up to the sky and laughing, but it wasn’t a joyful laugh. Instead, it was almost empty. “She’s saved me a million times. My Clara. My constant. Clara was- _is_ \- my mercy.” Her smile grew fond, but it was waxen still, a facsimile of something that maybe resembled happiness in another life, in another galaxy. “I can’t win, can I,” she whispered, and it seemed like what she was saying was too much for even her own ears to hear. “I can’t ever outrun her.” She rubbed a tired hand over her eyes. 

“Let’s be honest, then” she twisted to face the three of them. “I don’t _really_ want to outrun her.” She shook her head, her eyes flickering to half mast. “It’d mean I could never see her again. I couldn’t- I couldn’t do that. I don’t think I’d quite be _me_ , anymore- without my Clara Oswald.” She pulled at a strand of her hair, tucking it behind her ear and sighing.

Something similar to whatever had tugged on Yasmin’s heart before was tugging at her now, something invisible and buried deep within her like an instinct of her ancestors’ sent down for her protection. 

“Tell us about her?” she asked, finally, multiple emotions swimming through her chest. 

The Doctor was quiet a moment, and then she turned to Yasmin, meeting her eyes with a kind smile and pulling Yasmin’s hand to her own, squeezing it tightly before letting it drop. “Maybe someday,” she agreed. “Clara Oswald…” she looked back up at the building before meeting Yasmin’s eyes quietly. “Clara Oswald kept me kind and merciful. She’s still up here,” the Doctor tapped her temple with a rueful grin. “ And for now, it’s enough to know that she’s still out there, too. That I haven’t seen the last of her. That I really haven’t forgotten her,” she looked almost bitterly amused and relieved, as if she was relaying to them some sort of very important joke. 

“Oh-kay,” decided Ryan finally, stretching out the ‘oh,’ long enough to forget what he had been starting to say in the first place. “Well, it sort of sounds like you’re saying that she’s- that they- aren’t a problem anymore?”

She steadied herself, a half grin twinkling about her mouth. “Well, actually, I’m quite sure they’re a problem. A big one, too, really, ripping apart the space-time continuum. I mean- that’s a Tardis, what you just saw.” At their looks of disbelief, the Doctor scoffed with a beam. “Didn’t look as good as mine, did it!” she exclaimed, seemingly content to avoid the actual reason that they were looking at her as if she had grown another head.

“I don’t know, Doc, it had food,” Graham argued finally, giving up on any line of questioning as a lost cause, and the Doctor grinned. 

“I’m not going to dwell on it,” she decided, and it was very obvious that she was lying. “For now,” she continued, grinning manically. “It’s time for adventure. Time for running, and new sights, and all of the galaxies, at the tips of your fingers.” She let out a exultant sound, spinning all the way around. “Off we go then, gang. Back to the Tardis!”

As they started a fast pace back to their transgalactic blue box, Yasmin let another question fall from her mouth, almost against her own will.

“Doctor, if she’s so important to you, why not just go travel with her? Bring her with us?”

“Yasmin, Yasmin, Yaz. Yaz. I did.” The words were slow and valuable, a painting of something treasured and long lost. The Doctor didn’t turn to face her, but Yasmin was beside her and watched her face in profile as her strides painted long, bright lines along the street. “And then-” her brow furrowed, and she sighed, and it was a sound that ripped itself out of her like it was caught with thorns in her lungs. “I can’t go find her, and I know that,” the Doctor said finally, and her strides were less bright now, the resolve that had hardened the lines of her shoulders softening into a knowing sort of regret. “Why not?” asked Yasmin, baffled at the sudden change in the Doctor’s demeanor.

“Because she, as she is, now- _being impossible_ \- she’s out there, living- well, I say living- and I’m not-” The Doctor’s hand spasmed, and Yasmin fought to keep herself from reaching out a friendly hand, to provide some- any- type of comfort. “Not responsible,” the Doctor sighed at last. “If I don’t go find her, I can pretend that she’s not out there ripping apart the threads of the universe slowly, with her very existence. I can pretend she’s not making a round trip to death.” The last word was bitter. “I can pretend that it’s not my responsibility to keep the universe in line- even for her. Even at her expense.” She looked at Yasmin, who fought the urge to shake her, to ask so many questions. To ask her what she meant. To demand an explanation, an explanation she deserved.

“I’ve a duty of care,” the Doctor murmured, and her voice broke on the last few words. “And it pulls me in so many different directions. So I have to keep going, for now. To put some things off.” She sighed. “I’ve a time machine. I can dwell on the past anytime I like.” She looked away again. “But for now- just for now-” they ducked into the alley where the Tardis was sitting, “I’m puttin’ it off. Letting myself deal with it,” she flapped a hand, “some other time. Letting Clara off the hook. Dangerous, really.” 

She spun to face all three of them as she opened the Tardis doors with nimble fingers. 

“So what do you say then, gang? Bunch? Fam? Off to the lava glaciers on Rhombus XII?” She scrunched her nose up and leaned towards the console as her hands came down on it, nimble and familiar over the gears. “To see the fruit markets on Essex? Yes, Essex, that’s a whole planet, no, I’m not just saying that, really, it’s a whole planet-” 

“Sure, Doctor,” Graham cut her off mercifully, and for a moment the Doctor’s hands spasmed on the console, her mouth worked, unable to continue, before her eyes fell shut for a second. 

When she opened them and turned to them again, they were bright again. 

“Off we go then, gang!” she declared, and with a fiddle of levers and a bright grin, the Tardis was thrown into space, the Doctor running, running, running, running, -


	8. Chapter 8

“Right then, Doctor, what are you doing then?” Ryan asked as the Doctor flitted about the console. Her mouth was set in a tight line that tried desperately every so often to return to a smile. It wasn’t quite convincing enough, and she seemed to realize this, because she was angled away from them in a manner too careful not to be deliberate. 

“So you travelled with this girl- Clara- then, for a good while,” Yasmin said, leaning against the side of the console a bit. 

The Doctor didn’t respond, but her eyes flicked up to meet Yaz’s and they were proof enough. 

“We weren’t-” Yasmin started, questioning, and cut herself off, because it was stupid to think that the three of them were the first mates the Doctor had ever travelled with. 

The Doctor seemed to know what she had been about to say anyways, but she didn’t meet Yasmin’s eyes. 

“Right, how many people have you travelled with, then?” asked Graham, voice curious and kind. “Could we pop down for tea with them, or a chat or something, get to know each other?” 

“No,” answered the Doctor after a moment, mouth tight on her face and eyes almost desperate. “Was _just_ about to press this lever and send us catapulting straight down to a planet where the rainbows really do end in gold mines, and you lot are busy with questions. Honestly, humans.” She pushed up a gear and squinted at the display a moment, steadfastly keeping her eyes away from theirs. 

“Well why not?” asked Yasmin curiously. “We can’t see your - Clara- but maybe we could catch up with one of your old friends. You know, instead. Might make you feel a bit better.” 

“Mostly because they don’t want to see me,” interjected the Doctor, tone abrupt. “Well that, or-” she cut herself off, eyes frustrated. 

“What then?” asked Ryan. “You can’t be saying they’re all dead or summat. It’s not like we’re going to go down and blab either, if that’s what you’re worried about. We’re mates, and that’s what mates do- we travel with each other and meet each other’s friends, innit?”

The Doctor didn’t reply for a moment too long, and Yasmin shifted on her feet, suddenly very aware of the multitude of things that they didn’t know about the Doctor. Like who she was, or where she came from, or how many people had flown with her in her big blue box and might not have come back to their beds and their houses every night. 

“Some of them leave,” the Doctor protested, but it all seemed very token. “Some of them just don’t want to see me again. Some of them- yes, some of them have died, Ryan,” her eyes were pained. “Never because I didn’t try to keep them safe. Try to keep you safe. I-” she cut herself off again, aggravated. “I told you, if you came with me, it might not be safe. I didn’t expect you to have only realized that _now_.” 

Yasmin was suddenly quite frustrated. “Yeah, Doctor, we _know_ you said it’s dangerous, right, but there’s a bit of a difference between something being dangerous and something, you know, killing you, and it’d be nice to know that there are some of your friends out there that aren’t-” she stuttered to a halt, tongue on the edge of something she wasn’t quite sure how to wrap her head around. 

The Doctor looked almost affronted. 

“How many people have you travelled with, then?” asked Ryan. “How many people- how many of us?” 

“No ‘us,’” grimaced the Doctor. “No two of you- _every single one_ of you is unique. You aren’t just some basement bargain stand in,” here she grimaced again, “for each other. You’re- you’re my mates. You’re my fam. You’re my bunch.” Her voice might have come off as insulted, if it didn’t sound so tired, almost sad.

“Hundreds?” Ryan raised his eyebrows. “Thousands?”

“Ryan,” Yasmin scolded in a near-whisper. “Come on.” 

“We deserve to know, a bit,” Ryan returned to her. “It’s not like you haven’t thought about it, Yaz. Through all- this.” He gestured around them, as if to encompass the feelings that they’d all been experiencing throughout the last several days. 

“You do-” the Doctor seemed to struggle with her words for a moment. “You do deserve to know things,” she finally said. “And I’d tell you what I could, if you really- if you really asked. But you have to know,” she licked her lips, “just know I do my best,” she sighed, “I do everything. _Everything._ In my power, to keep _whomever_ I travel with safe.”

“We know you do, Doc,” Graham insisted. “It’s just that we haven’t much thought about who you’ve kept safe before, and it’s a bit much to think about all at once.” He paused. “So you are saying, though, that we can’t see someone? Like us? Who’s travelled with you, and all that?”

The Doctor scrubbed a hand across her face, looking suddenly quite old. “You could,” she said softly, and Yasmin felt a tension bleed out of her shoulders that she hadn’t even quite realized had been there in the first place. “I-” her face looked pained. “ _I_ can’t. Not because, mind, I _couldn’t_. In some cases, at least.” She turned her face away, blowing out a frustrated sort of breath. “Just- sometimes, when you move forwards, when you make yourself better and kinder, you have to _keep_ moving.” She looked very, very, very much like she was begging for them to understand with her eyes. “Some of those people, the ones I’ve travelled with- they know a very different me, and I can’t ask myself- to change that. To give them-” she stopped, eyes wandering across the Tardis. “You might be able to find them, though, they’re certainly wandering about. That’s the thing with time travel- usually you can find me right about anywhere- anywhen, even- and where I am, my friends aren’t far behind.” The crook of her lips wasn’t very soft, but it was still a brave sort of smile. 

“You don’t like being alone, do you, Doctor,” Yasmin asked, but it wasn’t really a question at all. The Doctor didn’t answer, which was proof enough. Instead, she picked up again about the rainbows and the gold mines, and Yasmin let the topic rest, let it simmer in the back of her brain. 

It was an odd feeling, realizing that she didn’t really quite know the Doctor. She supposed it was to be expected, when you ran after a daft alien who saved your life after crashing through the top of a train. 

She hadn’t even realized she had been quite caught up in everything. In all _this._ And yet, it was suddenly quite glaringly obvious that yes, the Doctor was old and different and _alien,_ and she was PC Khan whom her coworkers only _sort_ of liked in a very roundabout way. 

Beside her, Ryan and Graham were trading looks, and it didn’t seem quite like they were ready to let the subject drop. Yaz sighed, fiddling with her hands and reciting police code in her head in order to stop herself from interjecting, to stop Ryan from blurting out something that would make the look on the Doctor’s face grow even more weary and sad. It was a bit selfish, really, that she didn’t want that look to be on the Doctor’s face.

But the more melancholy the Doctor looked, the less bouncy and bubbly and _Yaz’s Doctor_ she became, and the more clear it became to Yasmin that essentially, they were travelling with an almost sort of stranger that they thought they knew quite well.

Which wasn’t a bad thing, honestly- the Doctor was their friend, even if she was a bit foreign to them, but it was all just a bit much to realize that the Doctor had a vast, expansive history that Yasmin didn’t even know about, a history which seemed to lurk in the back of her head and in her eyes when she looked at the three of them now. 

_10-35, major crime alert._

_10-99, wanted or stolen._

“Who are you, Doctor, honest?” Ryan asked.

_10-89, bomb threat._

“I’m,” the Doctor waved her hands about above the console, “I’m me. Who I always have been. Who I’ve made myself be.” She ran a hand through her hair. 

_10-55, intoxicated driver._

_10-52, request ambulance._

“Who’s that, then?” asked Ryan, and he didn’t sound quite accusatory, but it was an almost thing. 

_10-12, stand by._

_10-23, arrived at scene._

“Kind,” the Doctor bit out almost desperately. “ _Good._ No matter how hard it gets. Without any hope or want of reward or recognition.” Her eyes glinted with emotion. 

_10-31, crime in progress._

“You’ve seen me, Yaz. You’ve seen me, Ryan.You wanted to explore the universe- with me. You know who I am, by my _actions_. That’s all I can ask of anyone- to show me, who they are, by their actions. That’s who _I_ am. I try, because in all the universe, someone has to try. It’s my duty. It’s who I am.”

_10-37, investigate suspicious vehicle._

“We’re mates, Doctor,” Ryan agreed, and whatever compunction to fight that he had been fostering in his voice was gone now, replaced by something akin to exhaustion or confusion. “We trust you. It’s just,” he waved a hand, “We haven’t really known you all too long, and some of the stuff you tell us still comes as a surprise, that’s all.” 

“Sure, we’d love to know all you’ve experienced,” Graham nodded, “but we know you’ve had a big life, far as we can tell, bigger than ours. We just want to know how to help,” he continued, giving the Doctor a soft smile. 

“Yeah, I know,” the Doctor affirmed after a moment, and there was silence. She rounded the console until she was by the three of them again, and she squeezed their hands in turn, quick, practiced little motions within which she seemed to try and convey a world of emotion and of gratitude. Yasmin squeezed back. “We’re with you,” she promised, and the Doctor grinned at them, soft and almost vulnerable. 

“Right then,” she declared, “For real this time, you lot - off we go!”

It wasn’t perfect. Yaz didn’t need it to be. Right now, it was adventure, and trust, and seeing so much more than she could ever imagine someone like her might have ever been able to see on her own. And it was okay. They were in a time machine. They had all the time in the world. 

* * *

It was silent. Rose sat on the edge of Clara’s tardis, her legs dangling out of the door and her hands braced on the floor beside her. The tips of her converse, bright red and borrowed from Clara, skimmed the top of the ocean over which Clara’s tardis moved slowly, dangling in the space above the Ocean of Kalzor on Cheributham’s Fifth Moon. The sky was a dark, royal purple, but it was almost completely obfuscated, as all around them glowed pink and yellow paper lanterns, feather-light and caught in the air, some drifting peacefully on the dark, calm water of the ocean, others twisting slowly together in the sky. There were thousands and thousands of them for as far as they eye could see into the heavens. It was almost like being in a valley of stars, like lying in the middle of some giant and peaceful body of water were the same as drifting alone in space and watching the life of a galaxy.

It was Jubilee week on Cheributham’s Fifth Moon, and for the month in which the sun was eclipsed by Cheributham’s Fourth Moon, the local peoples sent millions of lanterns out onto their ocean to honor the stars and bring light to their lives.

The ocean’s only light came from the reflections of delicately shaped paper lanterns on the water, full of pink and yellow fire that did not extinguish upon contact with it. The water was dark and deep and beautiful, lapping against Rose’s feet. And beside Rose sat Clara, quiet as she observed the beauty around them, one of her hands twisting gently in her skirt. 

Five days later it was their seventh day on the ocean, and Rose and Clara spent most of their time quiet, Clara’s head on Rose’s shoulder or Rose’s head in Clara’s lap, fingers carding through her hair as she muffled sobs and sudden tears and something so decidedly lonely it was almost better not to put any words to it, lest it be given additional power. 

A thousand conversations must have been started and stopped throughout those many hours, Rose opening her mouth only to close it, or Clara starting to talk before being unable to continue. 

“I can’t lose - I can’t lose ‘em.” Rose finally said on day ten. She was on her stomach, now, on the floor by the edge of the Tardis, head on her fists and elbows resting on the edge of the floor where the door opened. She reached out with a hand and pushed up a lantern that was about to come to rest on the ocean with a single finger, and it swirled leisurely away from her. It was clearly a child’s handiwork, and doodled on the side was a bright green stick figure with long, curly black hair holding hands with a golden stick figure with short, yellow hair. In between them was a small blue stick figure with a huge pink smile, and in sloppy penmanship underneath was a series of strange looking letters that Clara’s Tardis’ matrix translated into the name “Hasbitt.”

Another lantern drifted down several moments later, and it was decorated with carefully cut out paper suns and crescent moons. Rose let that one drift onto the ocean’s surface, watching as the bottom of a tissue paper star on the side became waterlogged and turned a deep pink.

She took a deep breath. “Them being the Doctor, that is. Her, now.” Rose turned over onto her back, and now she stared up into the sky, eyes reflecting the thousands of lanterns hovering above her, glowing and flickering peacefully above the water and in the heavens.

“You can’t let go of someone that’s in your heart,” Clara responded from where she lay next to Rose, her fingers skimming the surface of the water. “If you have them in your heart and in your head, they live on. They stay with you.”

“It’s hell,” Rose whispered, closing her eyes. “With such a hell in my heart and my head, how can I live? How can I love?” Her voice was torn from her like waterlogged paper lanterns on the sea.

“You keep moving,” Clara responded, eyes distant. 

“Is that livin’?” Rose asked quietly. 

“It’s enough to be alive until you can,” responded Clara, but she sounded almost like she didn’t quite believe herself. Rose was quiet a minute. 

“”S not enough for me,” she finally said. “I can’t live my whole life, however long it is, knowing I never saw the Doctor again. Knowing I-” she cut off, as if looking for a long and sensible explanation, “could.” There was peace on the ocean, a breeze drifting along from the land somewhere far in the distance, off of the craters and mountains and valleys and hills on the Fifth Moon.

“The Doctor showed me a better way of livin’,” she continued. “I’ve said that before, and it isn’t less true now. They- she, now, I s’pose-” Rose lifted a hand to the sky above her as if the words would appear before her and allow themselves to be grasped, “was so good. At showin’ people how to live for others, not yourself. To make it, to live on, to be kind as best you can. To live kindly, and to be quietly good.” She blinked away tears. “‘S selfish of me, really, to see all that, to see the Doctor livin’ on, with friends, bein’ _good_ as best she can, and to think- to think that I can’t live that way without her.” 

Clara didn’t respond. “I know I can… be alive… without her,” Rose admitted quietly after a moment, “I can be alive and be kind and help people and run through the stars with you ‘s long as I’m alive, but I can’t- _live._ Without the Doctor.” She blinked slowly, and her hair curled onto the top of the water as it slipped off the side of the ship and onto the ocean’s surface. She looked very much like an angel almost, black hair lit up by the lanterns floating around her, eyes glimmering with light. “‘S selfish to say I can’t live without her - when she has to live without me, and she _is._ I can’t hurt her by comin’ back into her life a different person. A person she would-” Rose stopped, the truth stinging through her like a red-hot iron. “A person who’s different than who she loved. I’ve- I’ve killed, now,” she breathed, turning to meet Clara’s eyes where they looked at her, dark and old in the glow of the lights. 

“It wasn’t- I didn’t want to,” Rose assured. “Happened nonetheless.”

Clara looked at her. “You can tell me, if you want,” she replied, eyes still and compassionate, forgiving. 

“Was war,” Rose replied softly. “There was a sort of war, because people an’ aliens were dyin’, out of nowhere, an’ everyone was pointing their fingers at each other.” She looked at Clara. “When the Doctor left me, he didn’t leave without leavin’ a bit of himself. By a bit of himself, I mean that there was at one point a human version of him created ‘cause of a regeneration accident.” 

“Seriously?” asked Clara, tilting her head. “A human version of the Doctor? Bet he hated that.”

Rose laughed. “Yeah, a bit,” she replied. “He definitely wasn’t so keen on the one heart thing. An’ he had no one to insult about bein’ inferior. Didn’t stop him from saying things about humans, mind, but it stopped most people from takin’ him seriously.”

“So you still, what, went about the universe and saved people,” Clara asked. 

“Yeah.” Rose shifted her feet a bit, propping her foot up on a ledge inside the Tardis. “Couldn’t help it, really. But it got - hard. He kept forgettin’ stuff, and he was smart enough to know he was forgettin’ stuff, and he was also smart enough to know that it was because of his human brain. Humans aren’t designed for long lives. Tend to forget things. An’ so he was getting older, an’ it became obvious that I, well, wasn’t, really. Told you about that thing where I sort of mutated, didn’t I? Wasn’t aging a day. An’ he was changin’, getting older, and weaker, and forgetting things, and there was a war, an’ one day he-” Rose cut off, letting century old sadness fill her for a moment before it drew back like the tide. “He wasn’t even quite him, in the end. Gone a bit mad. A big part of the Doctor is how -she- honors people. Their past. By always rememberin’, keeping memories in her head and heart. It’s important. And it got taken away, an’ he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with it. He struggled a lot. Tried to help ‘im best I could, but.” Rose chewed on her lip. “There were people dyin’ everyday for no reason, fallin’ down in the streets. Aliens, too, comin’ to try an’ help. Peaceful. You didn’t know who’d go next, an’ one day it was him.” 

“I’m sorry,” Clara spoke softly. 

“Yeah,” Rose sighed. “Me too. Turned out there was a sort of rift in space-time that needed fixing, an’ it was bleeding through edges of other universes. Sort of like when you mix red an’ blue an’ get purple. Only it was people’s lifespans bleedin’ through, and so if there were other versions of a person in another universe that got caught up in the rift, an’ they died for some reason in the other universe- so’d the same person in our universe.”

“What happened?” Clara asked after a moment. 

“I went an’ confronted an alien species who were best equipped to sort of, mend things, or at least, psychically protect our universe from anythin’ bleedin’ in from another universe. The Jude, they were called. None of us were a plum shot at actually fixin’ any part of the space-time continuum, so we had to try the best we could with what we had. Only, they had a war goin’ on, The Jude, and they were sort of keen on seeing their enemies dyin’ for no reason, even if it affected some of their own. Bit mindless, but really powerful. An’ in the end, they didn’t budge, an’ they didn’t give their enemies psychic protection. I’m explainin’ this all a bit fast, but in the end, the deal was- either everyone besides their enemies gets protection, or no one does. An’-” Rose closed her eyes. “I agreed, an’ people stopped dyin, except the aliens who weren’t protected. An’ then I tried to go warn ‘em, tell ‘em to make peace with the Jude, and the idea was so outrageous to them. They refused, even as their own kind were dyin’ around them. And the Jude found out what I’d done, how I’d, well, consorted with the enemy, and they told me that I’d betrayed the trust of the whole human race.” 

Rose’s eyes were still closed, but her voice suddenly cracked. “And they were gonna undo everythin’ they’d put up protectin’ the universe. An’ I told ‘em, it was just me. The whoe universe shouldn’t be punished for something I did. Told them to punish me instead.” Rose breathed out.

“And so they threw me into the very middle of that rip in space-time after running me through with some sort of psychic pole. Told me it’d be enough to off any version of me in existence in any universe, to serve as a marker of my betrayal. But they agreed to let everyone else live, except, still, their enemies.” 

“So you sacrificed yourself, then,” Clara summarized, eyes sad. 

“Didn’t have much of a choice, really. I couldn’t just watch as the universe died off ‘cause of me.”

“Everyone dies, Rose.”

“Yeah, but the longer our universe wasn’t protected, the more universes started bleedin’ through the gaps. An’ the more universes started bleedin’ through the gaps, the more people started dyin’ because of somethin’ in another universe. See,” Rose lifted her hands in front of her, opening her eyes. They seemed to glint gold for a moment, but Clara dismissed it as the lantern’s reflections in her eyes. 

“When you’ve an infinite number of universes,” Rose continued, “You’ve an infinite number of things happenin’. You’ve got everything possible happenin’, somewhere. An’ everything possible includes death.” She fit her fingers together like a tent, folding them around each other. “So the longer the gaps stayed open, and the more universes started bleedin’ through, the more people started dyin’. If that makes any sort of sense.”

“How did you end up here, then? Back where you started?

“Well,” breathed Rose. “Problem with runnin’ me through with a psychic staff an’ then throwing me into space an’ time is that I’m sort of familiar with space an’ time. The staff jus’ sort of transmitted my, well, psyche, out through all the universes, an’ it took me to the only other universe I’ve ever been to, because my psyche recognized it. An’ then I was fallin’, an’ then I was- here. Regenerating.”

“That’s a- big story,” Clara settled on after a moment. “Lot of action.”

Rose let her hands fall into her lap. “Seems a bit much told all at once, but honestly it happened over the expanse of about a hundred years. Took a right while.”

“So you’re hundreds of years old now?” Clara exclaimed. “What next, really?”

“Well about two hundred, I think. Give or take a few.” “Look good for it,” Clara winked. 

Rose snorted. “You aren’t a spring bunny yourself,” she replied. “How long have you been wanderin’ the universe alone?” 

“Wasn’t always alone,” Clara replied. “I’ve got a buddy. Still do, really, but she’s leading a thousand year rebellion on the planet Tauphi Epsilon.” “Thousand years?” Rose asked. “So she’s a bit old too, then? What’s been goin’ on since I’ve left, honestly?”

“The Doctor,” laughed Clara, but her face grew more serious after a moment. “He was so tired at one point. He’s always so tired, really. Tired of people dying, tired of not being able to save people he wants to be able to save. I tried to help him as best I could, but he-” Clara sighed. “We were in a little village, and he decided to just save _one_. Problem was, it was one who’d died. A girl, named Ashildr. And he fixed her up all right, but the technology he used to save her was alien and not quite meant for her, so it gave everything a bit of a kick in the pants, and now she’s pretty much immortal. Travelled to the end of time with the Doctor, and she was still there. Goes by ‘Me,’ now, not Ashildr, much as the Doctor tried to fix her to the name she was once so fond of. She doesn’t even remember that part of her life. Like you said, really. She’s human. Not particularly meant for her lifespan. For all her memories.” 

“So he made someone immortal because he was cross at himself,” Rose summarized, grinning sort of fondly with sadness in her eyes. “Typical.”

“Yeah, a bit,” Clara agreed, and Rose reached out to squeeze her hand. 

“An’ you?” Rose asked after a moment. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

“Been a couple hundred years, I think. My lifestyle isn’t quite linear, so it can get a bit hard, arranging stuff like years lived. But I’m not really alive, so I’m not quite sure if age even counts for me. Technically, I’m not old at all.” 

Rose grinned. “Sure thing,” she replied. There was silence a moment before she continued. “Does it scare you, then?”

“Does what?”

“You’re still human, Clara. What happens when you start forgettin’ things? You told me you’re still going to end up back on Gallifrey to live the last moment of your life, but does it scare you? You can’t hold on to everything you’ve known forever. Not like the Doctor can. Will that ever stop you?” 

Clara looked a bit stung, but she was smart enough to know that Rose was right and didn’t mean the question unkindly, and after a moment she almost seemed to wilt a bit, twisting the ends of a few pieces of Rose’s soft hair between two fingers. 

“It scares me more than anything else. Memories are what make you who you are, really. They’re valuable. Some places even use them as currency, which is- something, honestly. Can’t quite get behind it. But without memories, without experiences- those shape you. I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

“How long is a long round trip back to Gallifrey, then?” Rose queried softly. 

Clara looked out at the lanterns with wide, sad eyes, and did not answer.


	9. Chapter 9

“Being smart,” the Doctor decided, “is stupid.”

“Not to poke holes in your personal philosophy, Doc, but that one doesn’t seem very sound.” Graham replied, voice unconcerned. He took another bite of the apple in his hand and turned his head to look at Ryan and Yasmin, who were poking at the console interestedly. 

“It just _is,_ Graham, don’t be finnicky,” remarked the Doctor. “I shouldn’t _want_ to drive the universe into a state of complete disrepair, and yet,” she threw out her arms as if asking for a hug from someone invisible, “ _here_ I am!”

“What, like when you played planet ping pong last week,” asked Ryan, unamused. “That wasn’t exactly safe for the universe, either. Nor was planet bowling. Or-”

“We get it, we get it,” interrupted the Doctor hurriedly. “My personal philosophies are absolutely riddled with holes, thank you for that. Let’s crack on to something a bit more interesting, do you mind?”

It’d been about two weeks since the Doctor had taken them to Aarcharsterous, where the rainbows ended in gold mines. There, they had promptly been chased off by giant wolves in the middle of some sort of anarchy. With every passing day - minute, even- the Doctor grew increasingly manic. 

Ryan raised his hands as if in surrender, lifting his eyebrows a bit before turning back to Yaz. 

“You’d think that manipulating gravity to smash planets out of their orbits would maybe be, say, illegal,” Graham reflected airily. “I’d sure like it to be, really, for the sake of my own planet and my own continued good health.” 

The Doctor scoffed. “Don’t be silly, you can’t use _Earth_ as a bowling pin. Only the little planets. You lot are protected by Galactic Law.”

“911, what’s your emergency?” Yasmin put her hand to her ear as if it were a phone. “Oh, he’s breaking and entering? I’m sorry ma’am, that’s illegal. Tell him that’s illegal, that’s against the law.”

“I get no respect around here!” The Doctor exclaimed. “I mean, you have a point, the Shadow Proclamation _is_ a bit useless, honestly, but you’ve also got me, and that should count for something, at least. A bit of something.”

“The Shadow what now, Doctor?” asked Ryan, sliding a lever towards Yaz, who slid it back and then prodded a pinkish button.

“Space police. Useless ones, really, but still,” the Doctor waved her hands, “there. Upholding Galactic Law - well. _Trying_ to uphold Galactic Law, really.”

“There’s space police?” asked Yaz, eyes flying to the Doctor’s, wide and excited. 

“Don’t get all excited about it,” the Doctor answered, flipping her hands in a ‘begone,’ sort of movement, “they aren’t any good. And no, you can’t meet them, they’re so dull they’d just rot your brains. Seriously, _and_ I almost died last time I saw them, can’t be doing that again. You like me as is, don’t you? Don’t want some daft Scotsman running you about space and time, or god forbid someone with a celery tacked to their jacket-”

“Maybe you should get a bit of sleep,” Yasmin inserted strategically. “You know. Rest.” 

“Bad idea of the day goes to you, Yasmin.” replied the Doctor with a manic beam. “Congratulations.” She paused, rocking on her heels, before rushing over to where Yasmin and Ryan were sitting at the console, pressing several buttons in quick succession. “And _please_ stop trying to eject us into space. It’s a bit hard to breathe out there, what with there being no air and all. No more-” she fumbled for words, “buttons. Stop _pressing_ things.”

“The Tardis wouldn’t eject us out into space, Doc,” Graham said, placing his apple core carefully in the bin. “She’s nicer than that.”

“To me, maybe.” replied the Doctor. “She has a bit of a temper sometimes, and we are trying to work on it, but she can be very-” the Tardis jolted, and the Doctor swayed a bit before glaring at the ceiling, “stubborn.” 

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re a right joy,” Ryan muttered. 

“I take offense, Ryan! This is me, taking offense. Really,” the Doctor protested. “Okay,” soothed Yasmin, in the sort of voice she might take with her coworker when they went out for drinks and left her with all the work, and then had the nerve to get mad when she didn’t bring in donuts the next morning. “Sleep, Doctor. We know you’re all fancy and advanced, but you should at least sit a bit. Take a few deep breaths, yeah. Bit more peaceful.”

“I can’t,” the Doctor answered abruptly, and it must have sounded a bit too honest, as she then ran her own words over like a steamroller. “ _Much_ better things to be occupying my time with. Do you know how much _time_ you all take up, sleeping all the time right and left?”

“Only that’s a bit important for us, see,” Ryan interrupted, face kind and tolerating. “Not as important for you, that I’ve gathered, but it’s a good time for your brain to sort through the ruckus of the day and some such. Would do you a right spot of good, I reckon. The universe will wait.” 

“What do you mean, you can’t sleep?” Yaz asked, a bit more observant than the Doctor had probably hoped her to be. “Saw you sleeping for a good chunk of time when we first saw you. Just because you don’t do it often doesn’t mean it’s impossible, yeah?”

“Those were right extenuating circumstances, I’ll have you know, and it was hardly sleep. It was a sort of coma brought about by complete molecular regeneration, and it’s a bit exhausting for the body.”

“Will you sleep if we call it a light coma brought about by molecular exhaustion, then, Doctor?” asked Ryan. “Since you seem to be a bit fixed on the needing a fancy name for sleep in order to justify it, may as well push a bit and call it ‘spontaneous psychological recharging,’ or whatever might strike your fancy right about now.”

“Hate to say it, Doc, but you look a right bit dead on your feet, and we’d hate to explore the universe with a tour guide that hasn’t slept in weeks. Lack of sleep does things to you. Ain’t pretty, either.” Graham nodded conspiratorially.

“Just rest your eyes, at least,” Yasmin added. 

“Can’t stop to think,” the Doctor replied. “Really. Always thinking, me. Quick thinker. If I slow down now-” she waved her arms about madly, “bad...stuff. Bad stuff’ll happen. Always does, always will. Can’t stop to think about why messing with my own timeline could probably definitely not end up well, for well, me.”

That didn’t sound good at all. 

“So you’re what, doing it then? Following your friend? Doctor, what was all that about destroying the universe if you did that? Not to burst your bubble here, but I’m a bit fond of, well, the universe.”

“ _Really,_ ” interrupted the Doctor loudly, “ _I’d_ say that if the universe were going to implode, it should really get along with it a bit. We’re on the clock here, and it’s had a right dozen or so opportunities to blow, but it hasn’t, and therefore the likelihood that it’ll go round the bend now if I follow a friend for a bit is really, well, quite preposterous, if you think about it, honestly.”

“And if it does go bad?” Ryan asked sensibly.

“Well then I’ve discovered a whole new way to _not_ do things, haven’t I?” replied the Doctor, her tone just as sensible but the content of her response decidedly _not._

“Yeah, that’s really not what I was hoping you’d gain from that,” Ryan sighed. 

“How ‘bout this then, Doc,” Graham decided, as Yasmin steered the Doctor away from the console to try and preserve the universe a couple moments more, “You sleep on it, and explain things properly afterwards, and if everything sounds proper, we’ll off and find your friend.”

“Graham,” the Doctor grumbled, patiently exasperated, “there’s no need to go all granddad on me. I’ve _much_ more experience in that field, anyways, and wouldn’t want you to muck up all your good human granddad advice trying it on me. It doesn’t really apply to Time Lords, see. The human bit.” She nodded sagely as if she were imparting a great bit of wisdom, and before any of them had a chance to digest what she had just said, she had hopped back over to the console. 

“Someone someday’ll have a right mind to smack you if you say that to their face,” Ryan stated speculatively. “Not the most flattering thing to say to someone, mind.”

“People already have done,” replied the Doctor brightly. “More than once, in fact. Wouldn’t quite recommend it, but it does get the brain quite snapped into gear, if you’re having a moment. Still wouldn’t recommend it, but there are some points to be made.”

“You can’t just go about riskin’ the universe for a single person, Doctor, I’m sorry,” Yaz sighed, chewing on her lip. “It’s not fair to everyone else. And I know you miss her, really, and she sounds like she was wonderful, but-”

“First spot of trouble, and I _promise_ we’ll turn right back around, gang. I wouldn’t take you with me if I didn’t think it’d be safe. Well, I say safe, but I _mean_ non-explodey-like.” “That’s not exactly reassuring,” Ryan interjected, “You’re saying you go off on your own when you think it won’t be safe? Like ‘oh, this one’s especially risky, let’s have at it by myself.’ Right, that sounds safe.” He nodded, but there was an obvious tension in his shoulders. 

“It’s not that I don’t want you around when I know things are going to be dangerous,” the Doctor protested, and she seemed quite lost as to when the conversation had slid quite out of her control. “Just, you _do_ spend an awful lot of time sleeping, and I don’t just...sit around and wait ‘til you’re awake to keep on helping where I can.”

“You’ve a time travel machine, Doctor,” Ryan rebutted, but his voice had softened. 

“She can be finnicky! As I said! Stubborn! Prone to hating small jumps!” the Doctor returned, voice turning cajoling. “Shall we go now?”

“Don’t see us stopping you,” replied Graham, and the Doctor gave a sort of whoop before running back over to the console, flicking up a few levers and leaning over to watch the display screen before humming and pulling down a lever. 

“This is a sort of Casimir effect, but don’t quote me on that, it’s just the simplest way of explaining this,” the Doctor started. “Two Tardis’.” She held out her hands to demonstrate. “Us,” she waved one, “and Clara’s tardis.” 

“Clara has a tardis?” Ryan asked, incredulous. “Right. Of course. You forgot to mention that bit,” he added, and the Doctor shook the hand representing her Tardis at him. “Focus, Ryan,” she replied. “Clara has a tardis. Stole it, really, probably not great, but I’m not about to throw stones from glass houses.”

“Wait, Doctor, did you steal this-”

“ _Moving on_ \- I’ve turned on the sonicator, which should at least marginally attract my Tardis to Clara’s and push them sort of together. Much more advanced than that, really, Time Lord technology, all sorts of really advanced stuff that would go right past you,”

“Thanks, you have a right way of making me feel special,” Graham muttered, but the Doctor continued without sparing a glance at him. 

“Meaning, we are in theory,” she rolled her r with a flourish, “off and running.”

“I’ve a _theoretical_ bad feeling about this,” Yasmin surmised, and the Doctor shook a finger at her. 

“None of those now, thank you, Yaz. Now, this might take a while, so if you lot want to relocate to the library or go exploring about the Tardis, now’s the time. Do _try_ not to get into too much trouble. If the Tardis is rude to you- well.” She stared at the ceiling. “She probably has a reason. She’s amazing. I’ll be with you in a jiffy. Off you pop!” 

“Right,” Ryan exclaimed after a moment, when the universe didn’t seem to be collapsing about their ears, “I’ve always wanted to see around this place and find all the secret bits. Bet it’s huge back there. You coming?” he asked Yaz, and she shifted to look at the Doctor a moment before shaking her head. “Nah, won’t do me much good to explore when I’m thinking about what’s happening out here the whole time,” she returned. “Don’t let me stop you, though, honest. I’ll be fine out here.”

“If you say so,” Ryan returned, looking again at the Doctor, who was mumbling to herself over the console. “Try not to go mad. We don’t need a pair.” His voice was fond enough, so Yaz nudged him a bit and he grinned back at her before turning to Graham. “What do you say, then? A bit of exploring sound alright?”

“Not everyday you get to look about a spaceship,” Graham agreed genially, and nodded at Yaz as they walked towards the corridor leading away from the console room. “Keep her safe, yeah? Only so much potentially universe wrecking stuff one should do without supervision.”

As Yaz was nodding, the Doctor’s head shot up, and her voice was fond. “Keep me safe? I’m always safe, Graham, rubbish. We’ll be fine. I think there’s a library down the way and to the right a few halls if you want to read about the metro line on Rooskaloovs. It’s like buses,” she enthused, “but it’s all free. One of the happiest places on the planet, too, the government runs wonderfully. Don’t know why the rest of the universe hasn’t picked some of that stuff up yet.”

“Down the way and to the right a few halls?” asked Graham, and he was obviously interested. “Sounds good. I’ll be there if you need me.” He gave a sort of half-salute and they left. 

As they left, the Doctor sort of deflated, her forearms coming to rest on the console, one hand resting in her hair. Yaz hopped up onto the console and sat by her. The lighting was soft and buttery yellow, almost like street lamps in the rain, and the moment was still and quiet, like stepping outside after a snow. 

“You alright then, Doctor?” she asked quietly, reaching out as if to squeeze the Doctor’s hand before pausing her hand in midair, flexing it, and pulling it back to rest on her lap. The Doctor, head in her hand and eyes unfocused, didn’t seem to notice her movement at all, and if she did, she made no movement. 

“The past remembers you, even if you try and forget it. The past always remembers. It’s a bit disingenuous, really, because one moment you’re sitting about having a cuppa and the next it’s all, surprise, your brain decides to pitch you a thought you’d kept in the back of your head for the past one thousand odd years. Don’t you agree that’s a bit rude?”

Yaz breathed in a curious sort of gasp, quiet and wondering. “Thousand years?” she questioned. “You’re a thousand years old?” 

The Doctor sighed, pushing herself back from the console. “Nah. Probably -two thousand, give or take a few decades. Or four and a half billion two thousand some odd, well, sort of, but we won’t get into that, haven’t the time. Not quite sure what my age is, really. Gets a bit wibbly when you time travel and live a bit of a long life. Don’t quite remember all the billions. An’ when you’re as old as I am, your age is just the sum of your memories.”

Yaz’s mind blanked. “Doctor,” she asked, and her voice cracked right through the middle. “What happens-” _when you lose us. When we die._ “What happens when we stop travellin’ with you? When we’re your memories too?” Yasmin tried to continue, but her voice was lost, and she let herself breathe a moment before continuing. “You can’t go on going back forever. You’ve got to let the universe spin itself sometimes. Is this some sort of punishment? Seeing Clara again? After you’ve lost her?”

“I don’t know,” burst out the Doctor in a very small voice. “I don’t know,” she repeated, quieter. 

“Promise me,” Yaz started, licking her lips, thinking. “I want to be a happy memory. I don’t want this to become of you, in the future, because of me. It’s not - it’s not right.” 

Even to herself, Yasmin sounded like a bit of a toddler. The Doctor was billions of years old, and here she was pleading to her like a baby. Problem with making someone a myth in your head is that the legend doesn’t live up to the life. Yasmin couldn’t blame the Doctor for not measuring up to a legend she’d created in her own head. 

“You’re worth more than that,” the Doctor replied. “ _Yasmin Khan_ , you are more than brilliant. You are spectacular. And you’re worth caring about, and you can’t- you can’t try and convince people that you aren’t. The universe isn’t fair, and you can’t expect it to be. You’ve just got to live, best you can. Never stop.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit disjointed, I think, and a bit late, but nevertheless it's up. Was going to get it up yesterday, but had a double shift, so I was at work from 8 to 8 and that was a bit of a long day. Honestly, the comments & kudos I get are the biggest reason that this story keeps pushing forwards. I have the idea all set out in my head, but writing it out and posting it is all because of the people who leave me feedback and let me know that it's enjoyed. If that's you, just know it means so much to me. I got a comment last chapter that made me smile for about three hours straight, and I'm not even kidding. If you'd like, please do leave me a comment down below. It makes my day. Love you all!


	10. Chapter 10

“You’ve never had your hair done?” The stylist asked, pulling her box braids back from her face as she ran her fingers over Rose’s hair. Rose was seated at a large vanity, and behind her stood Natacha, with whom Rose had booked her first ever hair appointment. With this new hair, at least.

“I’ve had my hair, uh, straightened,” Rose avoided. “Never really bothered with the curls, though. Not sure what to do with it. Not sure if I want to go back to blond an’ straight, or go with all of this.”

“Wow,” marvelled Natacha, the gold string in her braids catching the light. “Your hair’s in super, super great condition for having been straightened and dyed so long. You say you haven’t had much experience with curls, but your hair’s long enough that it’s been well-maintained for a while. So…?”

“Uh, I guess I’m here for tips, then?” Rose asked nervously. 

Natacha raised her eyebrows at her, then shrugged. “Sure.” She pulled out a conditioner from under the counter. “I’d recommend this line of product, personally, but no matter what you choose, I’d recommend, at the very least, having a good shampoo and conditioner, or a good cowash. I-”

“Cowash?” Rose asked, baffled. 

“It’s sort of like conditioner, only you use it instead of shampoo,” explained Natacha. “ Works because of dissolution. Oil dissolves oil- you work it through your hair and let it sit a while before rinsing it out- it works really well for curly hair. Eliminates a step, too. After that, I’d also recommend a good oil or leave-in conditioner for your hair. I’ll style your hair today and show you a couple products and how to use them, if you’d like.”

“I’d- yeah, for sure,” Rose returned, shifting on her seat. 

“What sort of style would you like?”

“A sort of- braid, maybe? I’ve never really done a whole lot crazy with my hair, so I guess that sounds nice. Like, a crown braid or some such? Proper fancy like.”

“I can do that,” Natacha agreed with a smile. Her cheeks dimpled. “Do you want some golden thread in there? Saw you eyeing mine, is all.” She tossed her braids over one shoulder. Rose pinked. “Yeah,” she agreed. 

“It’d match your eyes,” Natacha said offhandedly as she dug through a drawer for a comb and several small bands. 

“Oh, is it-” _blue,_ Rose wanted to ask, but suddenly she caught a glimpse of her eyes in the mirror, and startled. Her eyes were a fiery gold, lit by invisible flames and liquid metal, irises churning colors viscously, like a thick fluid marbling itself inside her eyes. Her breath caught. “Gold,” she wondered breathily, raising a hand to her cheek. Her sky blue nails, freshly done from the appointment directly before this one, contrasted sharply with her eyes. 

“Well, yeah,” Natacha agreed from where she was bending over Rose’s hair, carefully separating and clipping it into distinct sections so she could start working. “Figured you’d had something done to em, like at Reginald’s, down the street. Yours are nice, though. More subtle than the lady who came back here last week eyes literally glowin’ so bright you couldn’t look at her, if you don’t mind me saying.” She scoffed, licking her lips. “Good thing was her eyes were so bright I doubt she could even see how bad I botched her hair, what with how much light was in my eyes. Or the lady with little rainbow pinwheels. Circling endlessly. I’d go dizzy just doin’ my eyeliner, and I have enough problems doing that already.”

“I, uh,” Rose coughed. “Yeah. Totally. It’s just that I’m not quite, well, used to them. Where I’m from, it’s not the… it’s not the done thing.”

“If you don’t like ‘em, I can have Reg give you a discount for pigment removal. Girl should like her eyes. I think they suit you a right bit, though.”

“Oh, no, I like them well enough,” Rose replied. Some sort of distant memory lanced through her head, _(All that is, all that was, all that ever could be)_ but it was vague and half-there and Rose was a bit too preoccupied with the right now of things to pursue it much. “An’ like you said, goes well with the thread. Thanks.” She shot Natacha a smile, and Natacha smiled reassuringly back. 

Once Natacha had finished Rose’s braids, Rose spent a long moment staring at her reflection. It was as if something inside her shifted, the unfamiliar becoming hers, the strange becoming normal. This was her face. Terrifyingly unfamiliar soft golden eyes, but familiar face strewn with freckles, dark hair curling around cheekbones and swept up around her head into a braid laced with gold. 

“I love it,” Rose whispered, tongue touching the back of her teeth. The fifty second century on Escalipur was nothing if not admirable in its supporting of small businesses, and Rose knew that Natacha’s store would be a staple trip from now on.

“Suits you,” returned Natacha. “Your friend said she’d be back soon, so if you want I can get you all checked out in the front. I’ll give you a couple samples of the products I mentioned- on the house, if you like.” “Sounds good, thanks a million,” Rose replied, standing up from her chair. She caught her own gaze in the mirror once more, golden eyes glinting mysteriously back at her, before she shook her head and followed Natacha to the front. She handed Natacha her credit stick, courtesy of a favor Clara had called in that morning, and shifted on her feet as Natacha ran it and handed it back to her. 

“Have a great rest of your day, then,” Natacha waved, “See you again soon?” 

“”Course,” Rose replied with a grin. She turned to the door and reached out to open it just as Clara came brushing in, and she grinned as she took in Rose. 

“Wow, your eyes,” Clara exclaimed, leaning in, brow furrowing. “The other day, I could have sworn I-” “Yeah, didn’t Natacha do a great job with the thread in my hair? An’ I’ll have you know we’ll be returning here soon for her to do it again, if that’s good with you.” She interrupted, bumped shoulders with Clara, gesturing with her head to the door and then turning around with a smile. 

“Thanks so much!” she enthused. “See you soon, then!”

They waved and left, and as soon as they were out onto the main street, Clara whipped back around to turn to her again. 

“So your eyes just change colors now? Why’s that then?” She crossed her arms, looking intrigued. 

“I think it’s- I think it’s regeneration. And somethin’ to do with all the stuff that has me not aging. Hasn’t happened before now, really, but maybe regeneratin’ triggered something new? ‘S beyond me, but ‘s not exactly normal now, is it. Can’t go trouncing around the galaxy with eyes the color of streetlamps.” 

“So they just- change?” Clara asked, tilting her head. “You didn’t notice that they were blue, and then gold, and then blue, and now gold again?”

“No,” Rose confirmed, before knitting her brow. “Wait a mo’. They’ve been gold before, then? This isn’t the first time you’ve seen it?”

“Thought it was a trick of the light, really,” replied Clara, shrugging a shoulder. Her brown hair bounced around her face, and she tucked a wild tendril behind her ear. “Could have sworn I saw _something,_ only it was pretty fast and I wasn’t quite sure. But this, you know, confirms it, if you were wondering.”

“I’d say so, yeah,” Rose agreed, before bursting out into laughter. Clara looked at her with a bit of a worried glare, but it crumbled away into amusement soon after, and before long the two of them were laughing in the street, leaning on each other for support. 

“Do you think they’ll go back to a sort of normal blue, or stay like this, then?” asked Clara after a moment, a grin still tugging at the corners of her mouth. 

“I’ve no earthly idea,” replied Rose, beaming. “Well. I say earthly, but we both know a bit better then that, so non-earthly too.” she winked. “Where off to next, then? S’pose we’ll find out more as we go along, may as well keep goin’.”

“Well, I was thinking sort of a festival,” Clara explained. “Reallly big, a bit ostentatious, even, but they’ve got the best food there, and you know me.” She winked. “Let’s check that out, shall we?” 

“Wouldn’t miss it,” replied Rose, tongue in teeth, and she bit her lip and extended a hand to Clara. Clara grinned and took it, and without a moment’s notice they were off running to her Tardis, both their eyes alight.

Moments later, Clara’s Tardis disappeared with a soft whoosh, an unobtrusive shed in the back of a corner shop disappearing. The road from which it had left was mainly silent, some passerbies glancing up at the gust of wind before turning back to their activities, others ducking into shops. 

It was another seven minutes until a screeching sort of whoosh echoed through the air and a blue police box hovered in the space between material and immaterial before landing in the roadway with a thunk, its door swinging open to reveal a mussed head of golden hair and another young woman with a long, dark braid. 

* * *

“Like, ten of those,” Clara pointed out, and Rose rolled her eyes with a tolerating smile, giving an apologetic, (but not particularly sorry) grin to the tent owner. 

They had landed in the midst of the largest amusement fair and festival Rose had ever seen. It seemed to spread out for miles around them, but currently Clara was bartering with the owner of this particular tent for prizes after having been a particularly good shot at dart balloons. Clara’s Tardis wasn’t as subtle as it really should have been, parked directly behind this tent as a vending truck, loud orange lettering on the top declaring it to be “Os & Oswin’s Odd Old Orangespuds,” which didn’t sound particularly appealing, so Rose wasn’t too worried about the Tardis being swamped by foot traffic while they explored. 

Around them were millions of people, all different sorts of species and all sorts of languages. 

“Listen, miss, I can’t do that,” the tent owner apologized. “I only have the ten. But if you run down to Rosie’s dress tent down there and mention the name Aston, she’ll give you a sick discount on dresses, if you’re into that sort of thing.” Rose’s nose wrinkled at his vocabulary.

Clara sighed, a put upon sort of thing that had him paling a bit, before smiling brightly. “We’ll do that, then,” she agreed. “Aston, you said?” With that, she pulled at Rose’s hand, and they wove around the traffic deftly, soft green grass crunching under their feet. The tops of Rose’s boots grew damp with the morning dew, and in the distance the sun was turning the pale pink sky a golden yellow and blue as the sun rose over the horizon. 

“We’re beating the afternoon traffic,” Clara explained. “It’s absolutely awful, I was here a few days ago. Well, not really, more like a hundred years ago, but here, as in here, a few days ago.” 

“This traffic isn’t awful?” Rose replied. “‘S pretty busy already.”

“Trust me, it gets worse,” Clara singsonged, dragging Rose over to a tent with a neon sign reading ‘Rosie’s’. 

They ducked inside, and were almost immediately assaulted by a menagerie of fabrics and beads, dresses on racks shoved together in close proximity as well as dangling from the ceiling. Rose took in the room with wide, uncertain eyes, and Clara laughed. “Scaredy,” she teased. “Won’t kill you to look, will it?” “My mom was a bit of a shoppin’ buff. Took me out for shoppin’ so often I’m surprised I still have feet at the rate she went,” Rose replied. “Worked at a shop for a good bit, too, so I’ve seen it all.” “Not off Earth, you haven’t, space alien,” Clara rejoined, fingers brushing through soft pinks and deep reds and blues. Rose sighed, a grin crooking her mouth. “S’pose you’re right,” she smiled.

“Told you. I’m always right, I’m quite clever,” Clara replied, pulling a blue dress with a black collar and white polka dots of the rack. “What do you think?” she wondered, batting her eyes a bit and holding it in front of herself before turning this way and that to admire how it fell buttery soft above her knee in the light. 

“Suits ya,” Rose giggled, turning to the racks. “I s’pose you’ve got me, then.” Clara beamed. “Knew you’d come ‘round, space cadet.”

Several minutes later, once Rose had pulled out a white dress with a long hem and a blue dress with an intricate back and examined them a moment with her tongue between her lips, she nodded at Clara. “I’ll try these two,” she admitted. Clara gave her a wink, circling around from where she had been perusing in the back. She had a bold red pantsuit over her shoulder and the dress from earlier on her arm. 

“There’s a enclosure in the back for fitting,” she advised, “I’ll be back in a mo’, if you want to go ahead and try those. I’m going to run back out and grab my credit stick, forgot it on the console. Only’ll be a second. You mind holding these for me?”

“Not at all, give ‘em here,” Rose agreed, scooping up Clara’s items around her free elbow. “I’ll be in the back. Don’t take too long or I’ll have to come after you. I’ve got my credits in my pocket, so I’m all good.”

Rose waved her off with a hum and then turned to the back, almost tripping over an older woman as she rounded the corner of a dress rack. 

“Sorry,” Rose apologized, giving the woman a half grin. “Arms are a bit full, is all. I’m headin’ to the back now to try some of this, an’ the rest is my friends. She’ll be back in a mo’.”

“You are made of the wolf, Rose.”

Rose spun back around from where she had circled the woman to face her. “What was that?” she asked, intrigued. “Sorry, I’m what?”

“Made of the wolf,” the woman replied, eyes heavy-lidded and dark green. “You come from the wolf, and you will return to the wolf, and She will stay by your side again, and again, and again.” 

“Is this a sort of prank or are you pullin’ my leg or summat?” Rose asked, approaching the woman tentatively. The woman tilted her head to the side, heavy grey hair falling over a bony shoulder left bare by the draping toga sort of dress she was wearing. 

“No, Rose,” she replied. “The wolf is coming for you, even now. You are hers. She is yours.”

“Are you tryin’ to give me a spook?” Rose laughed. “Who are you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” replied the woman, clever eyes finding Rose’s golden ones. “You’re Bad Wolf.”

Rose felt her spine straighten, felt something inside of her tug like a string. “You’re not half funny,” she spoke cautiously. “Say, has Clara been tellin’ you things?”

“She’s coming, Rose.”

“Who’s coming, then?”

“The Doctor. Your Doctor.”

Rose paled, stumbling back far enough for her back to hit the rack of dresses behind her. The dresses, struck too hard, pinwheeled off the rack and onto the floor, spreading about her feet in a colorful sort of carnage. Some terrified hope sprung deep in her chest, and she did not acknowledge it. 

“Asparsi. That is from where I come. Burdened with knowledge of the determined and the indeterminate. I am the last of my people, and this too shall end,” she replied. “Dusk will take me soon enough. Take my dresses, Rose. Take your friends’. But do not bring the wolf to me.”

Rose felt the panic in her chest settle into place as courage, felt her shoulders set into lines, and felt her eyes turn piercing.

“I go where I please, thanks,” Rose bit out, hastily stacking the dresses that weren’t hers or Clara’s on the rack and handing the woman her credit stick. “Ta,” she returned brightly, grouping her dresses and Clara’s onto an elbow and ducking out of the shop, heart racing in her ears. 

“Clara!” 

The crowd was thickening. To her left were small children in bright blue gowns dancing around a maypole, and to her right was the path from which she and Clara had come, filling with brightly colored people and foods among brightly colored tents and food vendors. 

Pushing her way through the crowd, she made her way to where the Tardis had sat, and a breath escaped her as she realized that there was now nothing but people where Clara’s Tardis had stood. Os & Oswin’s Odd Old Orangespuds was gone.

“Bloody bothering hell,” she muttered, rolling her head on her shoulders. “Trouble. Of course. Bad Wolf, eh?” 

* * *

“Oi, where, the hell are you taking me?” Clara shouted, and her Tardis lurched, spilling her about onto the console like a rag doll. “Don’t-” she slammed her palm onto a lever and pushed it down with her entire body, “do that! Listen, take me right back, Rose is waiting for you.” 

The Tardis lurched again, and Clara was thrown off the console and into a corner, where she hoisted herself to her feet with a loud complaint. 

“You and me,” she complained, “are supposed to be, oi, stop lurching about like a drunkard- friends. Friends. You hear that, you blasted thing?”

She made her way unsteadily to the display, peering at it with a strong sense that something wasn’t quite right, but she wasn’t particularly happy that she had to be bothered about it _now,_ of all times. 

“What’s all this codswallop supposed to mean,” Clara grumbled, stabbing a finger at the screen. “What do you mean we’ve been locked onto by a Tardis? What do- oh, that’s not good. That’s rubbish, that’s what that is. It’s that blasted old space alien, isn’t it? Can’t leave well enough alone,” she muttered, before being thrown back against a wall with a loud thunk. 

“Two can play this,” she groaned, pushing herself back up again and approaching the console. “Thinks she can play with fire and do whatever she likes with her timeline, eh? Daft old thing.” She spun around the console, eyes narrowing. “You can bloody well lock onto me, you idiot, but it’ll cost you a right bit of power, and you can’t come in. Cheers.” She slammed a gear into place and blew a piece of hair out of her face. “Should have done right and brought Rose along. Now she’s off stranded in a dress shop. She’ll hate that.” Clara grimaced, shaking out her arms before the Tardis jolted to a stop, sending her skidding into the door. Unluckily, her body also slammed the door open, and she tumbled out of her Tardis and onto the soft grass of the exact same place she had just been, a good five thousand years into the future. Around her, the noises of the festival provided a good enough cover for her shaky breath as she pushed herself to her feet and crossed her arms, turning to face her Tardis with cross expression.

She was suddenly faced with quite another bothersome discovery. Next to her tent of a Tardis was a blue police box, and in front of it were the two men from the shop, one young and quite tall, the other older and quite short, and they were both looking right at her. Bother.

* * *

Two and a half hours earlier, or, five thousand years ago, depending on whether or not you were stupid enough to think that linear time was a given, the Doctor emerged into a street of shops with an eager sort of expression, tamped down by the worried looks she threw over her shoulder after Yasmin came out onto the street and closed the Tardis door behind her.

“Reckon they won’t notice a thing back in the library,” Yasmin reassured. “Listen, Doctor, I don’t see your friend. Just a bunch of shops here, is all.” 

“The Tardis wouldn’t have sat us down here for no reason,” the Doctor replied. “Just want to have a little quick sort of meander about. Just a little wander, is all, and then we’ll get packing. Was a shop that caused all the trouble last time too, after all. Could be a shop now.” 

“Why’s it that your Tardis is an old police box, and Clara’s is a whole shop?” Yasmin asked, peering into a dusty window and wrinkling her nose.

“Broken chameleon circuit,” the Doctor replied absently. “Could - should, really, but I’d rather not- fix it. She has her sort of charm, and I’m quite fond of it. She’s not half my favorite, and I couldn’t do that to her. It’s character, Yaz, that’s what it is, don’t you agree! Oh, ta, this is a lovely little shop here, not ominous at all. Bad Wolf salon. Quite the name, really, and I’ve no idea why I keep coming across it again- fancy a stroll into a hairstyling shop?” The Doctor’s grin was a tad too sharp, and without waiting for a response, she Doctor ducked into the storefront.Yasmin followed behind her. “La hawla wala quwata illa billah,” she muttered under her breath. 

“Hello, can I help you?” asked the woman at the desk, sliding a receipt into a drawer and placing her hands on the desk in front of her. She had expressive brown eyes and long braids, and her well manicured nails tapped the desk gently as she surveyed them. 

“Sorry, not much good at sitting still, would be rubbish at the whole being styled bit,” apologized the Doctor, before narrowing her eyes at the wall behind the woman and whipping out her sonic. 

“It’s that energy again,” she confirmed after a moment, seemingly speaking to the air. “Not particularly good, not good at all, really, but what can you expect- say, what did you say your name was, again?” she asked, turning to the woman behind the desk. 

“I… didn’t,” responded the woman, clearly baffled. “It’s Natacha, though, and if you don’t mind me sayin’, if you’re not a customer, you can leave.”

“Natacha- say, have you seen a sort of small woman with brown hair? Jumper, perhaps, or a dress? Sort of,” the Doctor wiggled her hands, “timey?”

“No,” replied Natacha, drawing out the ‘o,’ incredulously. “Only people that’ve been in here in the past hour was a girl with curly black hair and her friend, who I only saw a bit of, but she was wearin’ some sort of jeans. Listen, what do you need? I’ll call the police, I swear I will.”

“I am- I am the police,” Yasmin asserted nervously. “Plainclothesman, but,” she dug around in a pocket before producing a badge she had _meant_ to take out. “Here, here’s the badge. We’re looking for her friend, and we thought she might be around her someplace, that’s all.”

Natacha didn’t look particularly comforted.

“Well you’ve got to get a warrant if you’re going to go around poking at my things,” Natacha said. “Police or no police, I don’t like soliciting. _Do you mind?_ ” she asked sharply as a hair brush clattered onto the floor by the Doctor. 

“No, not at all,” Yasmin replied, forcing a smile. “Doctor, come on, this way, let’s- Doctor, what are you-”

“Lovely to meet you, Natacha,” replied the Doctor, who had stood up abruptly from where she had been bent over a chair in the back. With long, confident strides, she made her way up to the front with a suspiciously bright smile. “We’ll check in soon if we haven’t found her. With a warrant of course. Good day, etcetera, have a lovely one, ta.” 

With that, the Doctor pulled Yaz out the door by her arm, and the door slammed closed behind them. 

“Doctor, you’re a right oddity, what on earth was that,” Yasmin asked, knitting her brow. “You can’t just go about poking in people’s shops like a wild dog. Honestly.”

“I’m right and proper clever,” replied the Doctor smugly. “The shop wasn’t much help at all- none, to be exact, which I’m only a bit gutted about, seeing as it had such a fancy name- but the readings are here, so that means we’re definitely on the right track. Yasmin Khan, if we can just get back to the-” she stopped, suddenly, halting like she had pushed the brakes on something. “Oh, that’s rubbish. That’s a right bother. Well, we’re about to be at a bit of a loose end.” 

“What’s that, then?” Yasmin turned to look where the Doctor was facing. Her heart sunk down to her stomach. The Tardis was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you wouldn't mind dropping in a bit of feedback, I'd love you to bits. I'm a bit busy this week I've only just realized, so I updated extra fast- but if I get another ten or so reviews I'll do my honest best to get the next chapter to you in the next few days. promise! (is that bribery? only sort of? i haven’t gotten the next chapter written out yet is all) love you all to pieces!


	11. Chapter 11

“You must be the girl that the Doctor keeps going on about, then,” Ryan asked, coming up to the woman staring at the Tardis looking a bit frustrated and sad with his hands up a bit to show he meant no harm. 

“She went on- She’s not here with you, then?” asked the woman, and some sort of tension seemed to bleed out of her shoulders. 

“Ah, no,” returned Ryan. “Sorry. The Tardis sort of- we were wandering about, me and my granddad, and it must have kicked the Doctor off to some dusty planet or something. We’ve no idea where either of them are- we were a bit preoccupied with the library and the whole swimming pool that’s _in_ the library-” 

“She’s got it in the library now?” asked the woman incredulously, and Ryan grinned a bit, relaxing.“Yeah,” he agreed. “Not, probably, the best layout ever, but if it works for her, I suppose. Speaking of, I’m Ryan. This is Graham.” Graham smiled, bobbing on his feet, and greeted her before turning back to look around at the festival with worried eyes.

“Yeah, hi, I’m Clara. Pleasure to meet you and all, but it’s not good that you’ve just stranded the Doctor somewhere, convenient as it is for me. The fact that you don’t know where she is now? Makes things a right bit complicated.” Clara chewed on her lip.

“It’s not like we know how to get _back_ to her,” returned Ryan with an insulted sort of look. “Because flying the Tardis doesn’t seem like something you should just guess at. Looks a right bit complicated and not particularly sensible.” 

“Have to be off your chump to poke at all the little levers,” Graham added. “The Doc isn’t the greatest at explaining everything, really. She just flips them at random and we’re off.”

“You’ve just gotta give it some push,” Clara replied cheerfully, mind going a mile a minute. “Not too hard, long as you don’t push the wrong button and land somewhere that could get you disintegrated.”

“Right,” Ryan agreed slowly. “That’s why I’m not touching things.”

Clara wrinkled her nose. “Probably for the best,” she agreed. “But nevermind that, you’ve got me now, and I’m not half clever. I can get you back to your Doctor, only problem is I can’t have her seeing me, or we’ll have bigger problems on our hands then some old disintegration.”

“You’re not bad or anything, don’t get me wrong, but after all the talk the Doc’s been spouting, it doesn’t seem to me like you’re going to rip the universe apart or some such,” Graham observed. “She was going on about all sorts of things that made half a lick of sense, but it didn’t seem like the universe would much like it if you two came ‘round together for tea.”

“The Doctor’s proper scared of me,” Clara replied. “Not of me, really, but of what she’d do for me. Seems like she’s a bit mouth and trousers when it comes to leaving well enough alone.”

At their confused looks, Clara sighed. 

“Mostly, I’m supposed to be dead,” she explained with a sigh. “Am dead, really, only I didn’t do it properly. _I_ did it properly, that is, at any rate, but the Doctor went off and mucked about in my timeline the moment before my death, so I’ve got to eventually go back and finish dying properly. Don’t have a heartbeat, eitherways, so I’m a bit stuck. Got my Tardis and a couple friends.” There was a beat of incredulous silence.

“So like another Doctor, then,” Ryan surmised, brows high on his forehead. “Only half-dead and- hold on, I’m still a bit stuck on that fact- you’re dead?”

“Only _mostly_ dead,” Clara replied, and at their blank looks, she sighed. “Disappointing,” she pouted. “And,” she added, “I’m not the Doctor, I’m twice as clever and I’ve only got the one life. Not that it’s done me much good, dyin’ wise, or I wouldn’t still be running about.” 

“Blimey, we’re just some blokes from Sheffield,” Graham laughed a bit nervously. “I don’t have to be worried about sprouting some wings or summat if I keep travelling, do I?”

Clara smiled and shrugged with a single shoulder. “Depends the sort of stuff you get into. Didn’t go about planning to be done in by a bird made of smoke, but what can I say. It happens.”

“That’s not a bit reassuring, but thanks,” Graham remarked.

“You got finished off by a bird, then?” asked Ryan incredulously. “I’ve got to be on the lookout for murderous birds, now? ‘Case one gets some brilliant idea to kick my head in?”

Clara bobbed on her feet. “Only a bit,” she agreed. “Don’t go about transferring murderous sigils onto your neck, that’s all I can say, really.”

“Can’t say I really follow,” Ryan decided, “but fair enough, I s’pose.” 

Graham mouthed ‘murderous sigils,’ and shook his head a bit. “Hold up,” he spoke. “So we’re stranded somewhere with a half-dead friend of the Doc’s, with no way of gettin’ back, and there’s a sort of murderous bird after you?”

“It’s not after me right _now,_ is it,” Clara expressed, spreading her hands out. “Besides, I’m a bit stranded too, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come along with me. I’ve got my own Tardis, see.”

She gestured to the truck behind her, and Ryan raised his eyebrows, a skeptical expression on his face. 

“Don’t look too much like a Tardis,” Ryan observed. 

“Yeah, well you’re a bit biased, aren’t you?” Clara returned obstinately, giving Ryan an offended look. “No need to be rude. The Doctor _could_ have a Tardis like mine, only she’s a bit attached to the blue box and hasn’t gotten around to fixing the chameleon circuit.” 

“The _what?_ ” Ryan squinted. 

“Fancy bit. Makes it blend into its surroundings.” Clara grinned and hopped forwards a bit. “What do you say, then? Want to see the inside of a proper and functioning Tardis?” 

“What about the Doc’s?” asked Graham warily, but he looked game enough. 

“Got a friend about five thousand years in the past, in this exact spot, that knows a good bit about the Doctor,” replied Clara, giving them a wink. “She’ll be able to fly it. Tardis will stay here, won’t it?” Ryan made a sort of expression that translated roughly into ‘I suppose,’ and Clara smiled. 

“Uh- the Doc was going on about locking onto your Tardis using some sort of - sonication? Sonicator? Dunno what’ll happen if you take off again,” he added. Clara’s mouth twisted down a bit.

“Well that’s a bit bothersome,” she grimaced. “Here’s what I’ll do- I’ll preprogram coordinates into both of them, and all you’ll have to do is push down a lever. It isn’t proper Tardis flying, but it gets the job done. Game?”

Ryan shrugged. “Don’t see why not,” he agreed. “Don’t seem like we’ve got a whole world of options here. I’m just not too keen on flying off into all time and space without the Doctor. Or you, I suppose, as you’ve got your own Tardis.”

“Let’s cross our fingers that everything goes properly, then,” Clara chimed, giving them a bright grin and pulling open the door to her Tardis, taking a step in and then turning back around to meet their eyes with a wicked, happy grin. “Coming, boys?”

“Reckon we must,” Graham agreed, trading a look with Ryan as they hopped up into Clara’s Tardis. 

“Oh, bloody hell, it really is a Tardis,” Ryan muttered, closing the door behind himself and Graham. Gleaming white and shaped a bit differently, it was still unmistakably a Tardis, and he walked around the console a bit, examining the wholly different and yet undeniably similar levers and buttons. 

“Seems a bit neater than the Doc’s,” Graham observed. 

“Mine’s a good bit newer,” Clara replied. “Brand new, really. Haven’t seen the Doctor’s in a long mo’. Hold on, let me program these all coordinates in to the console, and I’ll pop into the Doctor’s in a moment. She and I have history, though, so she’d best behave.” 

“The Doctor?”

“Her Tardis,” asserted Clara a bit snippily, but with a mischievous smile. 

“How does that even- forget it.” Ryan shook his head, shrugging. “Best not to ask.” 

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Clara reassured, giving him a slightly troubling grin over her shoulder. “My friend, the one I mentioned- she and the Tardis are so close I’m surprised the Tardis hasn’t right up and gone for her already.”

“Who’s your friend?” asked Ryan. “The same one from the shop?”

Clara looked over her shoulder again, and her brow knitted. “You mean you don’t know? The Doctor hasn’t mentioned?”

“Mentioned what?”

“Rose. Isn’t that why you lot have been chasing down my Tardis? I’ve got to admit, it’s a bit much for the Doctor, and I’ll have to ask Rose how she feels about all this goin’ and finding the Doctor business, but anyways- you really don’t know?”

Her face was confused, one of her brows arched and her mouth pulled to the side in a frown. 

“Who’s Rose, then? Another friend of the Doctor’s?”

Clara turned all the way around, both eyebrows arching up her forehead. “You mean you really don’t know?” Her head tilted to the side like a curious bird. 

“ _No_ ,” Ryan answered, shrugging. “Should I?”

“Well it’s certainly unexpected,” Clara decided pointedly. “Would have thought maybe it would be a bit painful to see her, but wasn’t expecting the Doctor to have gone proper blind.” She tapped the console thoughtfully. 

“Rose is a very, very good friend of the Doctor’s,” she decided, before whipping her hair around onto the opposite shoulder from where it had been resting and pushing a final button. “How about that? I’ve still got it. All programmed in, ready to go. Off to yours now, ta!”

She practically skipped to the doors before pushing them open, hopping out of her Tardis and squinting a bit at the sun before walking over to the Doctor’s Tardis. Graham and Ryan followed. 

“Can you even get in?” Ryan asked. “Sorry, wasn’t quite thinking about things when I closed the door behind us.” He grimaced. “I think we’re a bit stuck.”

Clara shook her head, biting her lip and pulling out a long chain from under her collar. On the end was a small, silvery key. 

“Kept it, haven’t I,” she sighed. “Nostalgic, that’s me. But it’s useful now.”

“Is that a key to the Tardis?” Ryan asked disbelievingly. “The Doctor hasn’t given us any fancy bits like that.”

“Frequent flyer privilege,” replied Clara, not quite as brightly as before, but with plenty of spunk. “You’ll get there.”

“Not if it gets me killed by a stalker bird, I won’t,” grumbled Graham goodnaturedly, and Clara slid the key into the lock, large eyes taking in the outside of the blue box. “Be good for me, why don’t you,” she breathed, one hand splayed on the door, and with that she pushed it open with bated breath. 

The familiar yellow glow of the Tardis greeted them, and Ryan breathed a sigh of relief, retrieving his jacket from where he’d tossed it earlier. Graham wandered over to the console, and it wasn’t until Clara had been suspiciously silent for a moment that the two of them looked back to see her eyes welled with tears, which she shook away after a moment, giving them a shaky grin. 

“Been a minute since I’ve seen her, is all,” Clara explained. “Even if she is a grumpy old cow.”

The lights flickered a bit, and Clara beamed while Graham and Ryan shifted a bit uncomfortably. 

“Best not to make the transdimensional time and space machine mad,” Graham ventured. “Doesn’t tend to go well, in our albeit limited experience.”

“Oh, she loves it,” Clara bit out, but her voice was undeniably fond. The lights flickered again, and a smile quirked the edge of her mouth. 

“What do you say then? To Rose?” she asked the ship, before running up to the console, pushing both hands up against it and staring up at the rotor with wide, happy eyes. “To Rose,” she agreed to herself, voice full of vigor. “Alright, Graham! Ryan! One of you has to go push down the lever in my Tardis. Here,” she fumbled with her pocket a moment before retrieving a second key. “Use this bit to get in and I’ll see you in a half second, yeah?” 

“What happened to us flying this Tardis?” asked Ryan, but he didn’t sound indignant, more amused. 

“Maybe I’ve missed her,” Clara grinned, the spark in her eyes not dulled by the somewhat sad line of her mouth. It quirked up a moment later. “Maybe I just want the chance to fiddle with the Doctor’s beloved stuff.”

“Fair enough,” Ryan said, “but we’ve only just met you. How do you suppose we can trust that you’ll be upfront about this whole thing?”

Clara pouted a bit. “Smart enough, I suppose. Well you’ve got my Tardis key, haven’t you? That Tardis has my whole life in there by now, several bits of which I really can’t afford to lose. I’ll be back for those.” 

Ryan took a deep breath and shrugged a shoulder. “Fair enough,” he responded. “Granddad, you want to have a go at flying a Tardis with me, then?”

“Proper fun,” Clara encouraged, a glint of excitement in her eye. 

Graham looked between the two of them for a long moment before sighing a bit. “Suppose so,” he agreed reluctantly, but trying to hide his eagerness was no use, and he smiled a moment later. “Not every day a bloke gets to try his hand at flying a real time machine.”

“That’s the spirit, Graham!” exclaimed Clara. “I’m going to count to twenty, and by the time I’m at twenty, I’m going to push down the lever. See you on the other side?”

Ryan nodded, slow at first and then more confidently. “Time and space!” he exclaimed with a sigh. “Off we go!”

“One!” Clara exclaimed, a beam overtaking her face as she swept around the console, hair flying about her face. Ryan and Graham ducked down the Tardis’ ramp and out the door as she counted, and Clara circled the room pressing down levers, a voracious and victorious laugh escaping her. Oh, this all was _such_ a bad idea that it rounded all the way back to brilliant again. The seconds ticked past.

“Nineteen!” she exclaimed finally , though no one could hear her, and then her voice sank down to a daring whisper as she quirked one eyebrow and leaned over the fina lever, wrapping her fingers around it and pulling hard. “Twenty.”

The Tardis screeched to life. 

* * *

Rose’s heart was beating a bit too fast in her chest, but it was sort of like a return to normal. Most people spent their lives going to work, finding a spot in the car park, eating chips or some such, sleeping, changing, going to work. But for her, most days were comprised of running, thinking on her feet, doing what she did best. Trying to help and stay kind. 

She wasn’t born thinking she was going to live so long. She was born in the estate with her poor mum and struggling dad, and then she grew up without her dad and her mum doing her best for them both. She was born thinking she’d be a shopgirl till she died, and as such put no particular effort into school. Bits of her had always craved adventure, bits of her that she had pushed down like all the kids around her, bits which had eventually all but stopped talking. She’d just go work in a shop and help support her mum until she died. Maybe she’d marry someone with a good enough job to move out of the estate. 

To have your worldview so suddenly shifted like that- to go from shopgirl to someone who had the ends of the universe at their fingertips with every breath- that was big enough, really. She had a lifespan of an adventure in front of her- until she didn’t. 

Now even _she_ didn’t know how much time she had in front of her. It was more than a bit disorienting. The Doctor had had her whole life to think about a long life, and even longer to grow accustomed to it- as accustomed to quasi-immortality as one _can_ get, that is, without going completely mad- and yet here Rose was, thrown to the stars in every way, unmeasurably different from what she used to be, yet still so the same. 

And this ‘normal,’ now, what she was most accustomed to, was the steady thrum of her heart in her ears, the spice of adventure running through time-tinted blood, the wink of stars in and out around her, galaxies spiralling to an end through her front window. 

Still, no matter the adventure, it wasn’t a walk in the park, being abandoned on a strange planet with no idea if she could pick up a ride at any point in the near future. She supposed she had rather a lot of years to wait, if her prior regeneration and lifespan had anything to say.

She also rather thought it could be worse- she could be stuck in a whole other dimension than this one. Fancy that.

All things considered, she was really quite a bit lucky. Gnawing on her lip a moment, she spun around, approaching a nearby food vendor. 

“Oi,” she hollered over the noise, and the man, tall and red and with about a dozen eyes that all swivelled to face her, leaned over the side of his counter to face her. 

“Hi, ma’am. I’m Jeorg. How can I help you?” he asked, hooking his two thumbs in the corners of his plaid apron. 

“Just got a bit seperated from my friend, and I reckon I should see some sights while I wait for her to find me,” she replied with a sunny grin. “Do you have any recommendations?”

The man’s brow (and about three eyes along with it) furrowed, and he frowned down at her. “Do you need help finding her, miss?”

“No, she’s proper smart. I’ll jus’ stick around a bit, see some stuff. As I said- any thoughts?” Jeorg thought about it a moment.

“Ah- the ferris wheel, a sort of old attraction brought from a tiny little vacation spot known as the Milky Way- it goes around in a lot of circles in the air and brings you down. Sort of boring for some folks, but I like how it swoops.”

Rose nodded, brows raised as if in deep contemplation. “I’ll think about that, then,” she agreed seriously, tucking a bit of hair behind her ear to hide a grin. “Say, have you got anything else? Dunno, some food or summat?”

“Bad Wolf Barsainnt,” he agreed brightly. “They have the _best_ barsainnts. That’s spelled B-A-R-S-A-I-double N-T-S, by the way, but it’s pronounced barsans. Have folks fiddling through that all the time when they go and order. It’s a shame, really.” He shook his head. Rose shoved her shaking fingers into her pocket and drew her eyes up slowly to meet his, humming a bit in acknowledgement. “Keep that in mind, then,” she laughed, eyes scrunching up a bit. 

“Bad Wolf is a bit down that way,” he showed her, pointing with an index finger to a corner in between two businesses. “To the right. You can’t miss it. The ferris wheel thing is a couple astrazones down in the other direction, right by the entrance. About a half day’s walk, really, so not too bad.”

And indeed, the sun was setting already across from where it had been rising not too long ago, so Rose nodded. “Thanks,” she tried, dragging out the ‘s’ a bit as she looked down in the direction of the barsainnts. “Ta,” she added after a moment. “All the best.”

Twenty minutes later found her on a bench outside the shop, an odd looking piece of bread in hand. Poking at it a bit, Rose took a cautious nibble before making a sort of face and placing the rest down next to her, sighing and kicking her heels into the dirt, turning her face to the sun and squinting a bit. 

Her barsainnt had revealed nothing more to her besides the aftertaste of fried sourdough and clotted cream, and as such it wasn’t immediately clear if the sudden occurence of too many things named ‘Bad Wolf,’ was ominous foreshadowing, or some sort of prank she’d decided to play on herself in the future. Mind, it was _her_ past, really, but in _the_ future.

It could never be quite that simple, though, and a wry grin twisted her lips as she stood up again, heading back towards the area where Clara’s Tardis had disappeared,

It was night, now, but the festival was no less busy, bright glowsticks and miniature suns dangling from hands and fingers, thin, glowstick-like lightstrands curled through hair and feather alike. A small blue woman pressed several long strands of glowing light into her hand, and Rose accepted them gratefully. With all the people packed so close together, the festival grounds became illuminated by lights spiralling about eachother fast and slow, the people to whom they belonged chattering amongst themselves loudly. 

Sitting on a stool waiting for Clara was less of a chore and more of an activity. It was good to sit and observe the universe. This, after all, was what she helped preserve. Why she strived to help. The curl of small palms in larger ones, of children’s eyes looking lovingly into their parents’ or guardians, the intertwined hands of an older couple enjoying a walk together, the smile of someone enjoying their day, the courage in the eyes of someone brave enough to walk through a hard one. It was a thousand stolen moments, the futures of people she might someday see the pasts of. This was the beauty of life in motion. So she sat. 

When the grind of the Tardis finally caught itself in her ears, it was the grind of a Tardis she’d never expected to hear again, the sound reverberating alongside the whoosh of air that had become steadily more familiar to her over the past weeks. She stood up so fast her vision blurred, grey swimming at the corners of her eyes before receding, eyes wide and terrified, and most terrifyingly, hopeful.

The door to the police box swung open, and Clara swung halfway out, a tremulous but excited grin hovering on her lips. 

Rose’s heart stopped, only starting to beat again when Clara shook her head ever so slightly. Her knees gave out, and she stumbled forwards a bit only to catch herself on Clara’s arm for a moment, straightening herself out enough to hug Clara closely. After a short moment, she backed up, shaking her head and running a finger under her eyes. 

“Shouldn’t be so relieved an’ so sad at the same time,” she sighed. “Not fair to anyone. ‘Specially you.”

Clara shifted a bit. “About that,” she inserted carefully. “We might have a bit of a problem.”

The door to Clara’s Tardis swung open, and two figures emerged. 

Clara hopped over to them a bit, smiling nervously and rocking on her feet, throwing out her hands towards the two men. 

“Rose, meet Ryan and Graham,” she effused, gesturing broadly to each in turn. Her smile looked only a bit like she was gritting her teeth. “They travel with the Doctor.” 

“Pleasure to meet you,” spoke Graham, stepping forwards with a hand out and a pleasant smile. Rose raised her eyebrows a bit and stepped forwards to shake his hand. “Likewise,” she replied. 

“Uh, hi. Ryan.” Ryan gave a cursory wave. “You’ve got, uh-” his eyes met hers for a long moment. Rose breathed out an ‘oh,’ and pressed her fingertips up against her cheek for a second. 

“Yeah, that, eh, happens,” she reassured him finally with a sort of stutter, quirking her mouth up on the side. 

Ryan gestured to his face and made wide circles with his index finger. “So you’ve- you’ve got fancy eyes, and she’s,” he turned to Clara, “half-dead, or summat.” 

He turned back to them. Graham, beside him, looked between them with too-observant eyes. 

“As I said,” Clara enthused with a bob of her head to the side. “Perks of long-time travel and a bit of a danger streak.”

“Mine’s a mile wide,” Rose assured them. “Trust me. Both me an’ Clara got ourselves into our fixes an’ only have ourselves to thank. Would do it again, mind,” she took a deep breath, steadying herself, and then gave them wide smiles. “But you’ve got nothin’ to worry about.”

Ryan still looked a bit uneasy. “So you’re both- human, then?” 

“Oi,” Clara interrupted indignantly. “There’s nothing wrong with not being human, Ryan.” 

“N- Not that there is,” he hurried to say. “But you’ve both travelled with the Doctor and you’re both from Earth, yeah?” 

“Yeah, we’re both from Earth,” Rose answered, carefully avoiding the ‘human’ bit for now. 

“So what’s the plan, then?” piped up Graham. “We’ve got no idea where the Doctor is, and I’m sort of hankering to get back to her. Bit hungry, too.”

“Well, we can fix one of those right away, if you like,” Rose said, gesturing to the festival. “They’ve loads of foods here. I’d stay away from the barsainnts, but other than that- do you have anything in particular you fancy?” 

The sun was peeking up above the horizon again, and the glow from the people around them was dwindling as they stuck their glowing apparel into pockets or satchels to be used again in a little while.

“Not too keen on going wild with alien food,” Graham admitted, giving a sort of reluctant grin. “Seems a bit hard on the old stomach if I eat something meant for someone with a different constitution. I’ll stick with my old ham and cheese, if no one minds.” He rocked back on his heels, and Rose raised an eyebrow. “Fair enough,” she said. “Maybe we’ll come across one of those soon.” She gave him a smile, then turned to Clara. “What’s this about losin’ the Doctor, then?” 

“Yeah, about that,” Clara grimaced. “Sounds like the Doctor realized I was gallavanting about when I’m very much supposed to be stuck back into my timeline on Gallifrey and then dying, and it tore her up a bit too much and now she’s trying to find me.” She gave a sort of unamused laugh, something that was more of a staggered breath of air than anything. “Maybe the whole using the Tardis to disappear right after ejecting them from my little shop was a bit much?” She gave an apologetic grin. “Anyways, she’s locked her Tardis onto mine, and apparently it stopped somewhere while these two were off exploring in the back of the Tardis, and she got out.” Clara grimaced, raising her eyebrows. 

“The Tardis kept going, didn’t it,” Rose sighed. “She really should know a bit better.” 

The two of them traded looks before Rose was laughing, a full laugh that almost doubled her over, eyes scrunching up. The glow of the sun caught up her hair in a halo, and in that moment she looked very much like an angel, wind caught up around her head like a messenger of a god. 

“Not to spoil the moment,” Ryan pushed, “but it’s not- alright, it’s a bit funny, but Graham and I are a bit, well, stranded, really. Not that you two aren’t-” he held out a placating hand, but dropped it when he realized he didn’t quite know how to finish that particular sentence. “Anyways.”

“You’re not stranded in the least!” Clara cajoled, patting Graham on the back and giving Ryan a frown. “You’ve got- well, me. Rose and I will talk things over. But you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“I’ll believe _that_ when I see it,” Graham contended, but he looked grateful nonetheless. 

“Could be much worse,” Clara said brightly, wrinkling her nose. She straightened her spine and swung her hair off her neck. “Food now, Doctor business after?”

“Sounds good enough,” Ryan agreed, and Graham nodded. 

* * *

“Oh I don’t like this, not a bit,” grumbled the Doctor from where she was hunched over the hair stylist’s counter, sonic screwdriver buzzing as she made some sort of configuration with a loudspeaker and about three hairdryers. “Configuring this sort of thing on Earth is one thing, configuring it with a bunch of useless hair stuff is another. No offense, Natacha.”

Natacha sighed from the corner where she was sitting on a chair, her long nails tapping on the armrest. “You’ll owe me a bunch of that hair dye you mentioned,” she returned. “And I mean a good supply, too, not just a bit and then running off again. I still don’t know just why I let you back in to fiddle with things.”

“It’s my face. _Very_ trustworthy,” confided the Doctor. 

“Better be,” Natacha raised her eyebrows doubtedly. “That’s a good speaker, there, and I’m pretty sure you just tore out all the bits that make it actually useful.”

“Need the cords,” the Doctor muttered around a mouthful of live wires, and Yasmin grimaced, her arms full of a contraption made of different sorts of wires running intricately through toe spacers and around foam hair curlers. “Not to rain on your parade, Doctor, but this isn’t looking super promising,” she sighed. “Looks a bit like you’re about to be electrocuted out of your wits, to be honest.” 

“Been there, done that, not a walk in the park, despite what Ben was going for,” the Doctor affirmed, spitting out the wires and attaching them to some of the ones dangling from Yasmin’s arms. “Now, try not to move _too_ much. I _think_ I know what I’m doing, but I’d rather be careful.”

“Well, that’s really reassuring,” Yasmin sighed, trying not to focus on how two of the wires touched and gave a sort of spark.

“The fun thing,” the Doctor said in a lighthearted tone, “is that we won’t be able to teleport into the vacuum of space again. Namely because I can’t really patch something together that will make us teleport. Well, I could, but it wouldn’t make your liver- or any of your organs, for that matter- much different from a bowl of soup. Aha, that’s it-” she squinted, wrapping electrical tape around two wires she connected and picking up a new one. “This, though, this should give us a vague sort of idea _where_ and _when_ the Tardis is- and we’ll figure out where to go from there. I don’t suppose there’s any sort of display screens in here, are there? Yaz, have you got your phone? Ah, I see it.” 

She leaned over to grab Yasmin’s phone out of a jacket pocket, and Yasmin closed her eyes and sighed, unable to move her hands to demand it back as they were a bit occupied. 

“You’d better not reformat that one like you did Ryan’s,” she protested weakly. 

The Doctor grimaced a bit from where she was tapping at the screen. “I’ll do my - nevermind. Sorry.” she shot a apologetic grimace up to Yasmin. “I did back it up to the cloud this time though, real fast. So once I’m done connecting all these bits, you should be able to put everything back _just_ right.” She leaned back, placing the phone on the counter with a clack, before leaning back on her heels a bit and meeting Yasmin’s eyes.

“Right, show time. Yasmin, if you could put that down on the counter- very carefully, mind, _really_ would rather not have the soup thing happen-” 

Yasmin set it down gingerly, releasing a deep breath as soon as it hit the counter and then letting out a sort of half laugh of relief, meeting the Doctor’s eyes. 

“If either of you gets electrocuted, I’m not calling the _actual_ cops,” Natacha sighed, giving Yasmin a bit of a glare before standing up from her chair to come examine the contraption the Doctor had just pieced together. She surveyed it for a long moment before tugging on one of her braids. “I swear, if you fall through on your end of the deal…” she trailed off, giving them both a glare. “I’m going to step out for a smoke, and you two had better not go running while I’m out.”

“Noted,” the Doctor assured from where she was once again messing with Yasmin’s phone. Yasmin came up next to her, peering over her shoulder to try and make heads or tails of what she was doing. 

“Scoot over a bit,” she encouraged, nudging the Doctor over a bit in order to properly see the screen. The Doctor acquiesced, and Yasmin watched the blue lettering fly by across the screen at a million kilometers per hour before she grew a bit dizzy and leaned back a little. 

The Doctor didn’t move in the slightest, engrossed as she was in what she was doing. Every once in a while she would tap something and the words on screen would pause for a moment before starting again, but there was no outwardly discernable rhyme or reason to how she was tapping. After several long minutes, Yasmin opened her mouth, running through potential questions. 

“Doctor,” she finally tried after a long moment. “Can you- what’s something you and Clara did together? What sort of adventures did the two of you go on?”

The Doctor’s eyes slid to hers for a moment, the glow of the phone held so close to her face that it reflected in her eyes, before she sighed a bit, adjusting her hands around the phone and turning her eyes back to it. 

“Lovely pair, me and her. We got a whole lot done, really. Why do you ask?” “I dunno,” Yasmin shifted uncomfortably. “I suppose I’ve realized I don’t know a whole lot about you, is all, and I want to know more. Get to know you, that is. Proper mates.”

“You don’t have to know everything about someone to be their mate, Yasmin. You should know that. Thought we were sort of proper mates already,” the Doctor returned, gaze not wavering from the phone. 

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Yasmin protested. “I only meant, like- we should talk, a bit. I want to know about you a bit more, is all.”

“You know me,” the Doctor objected, still focused. 

“Please, Doctor,” Yasmin enquired, tired. “What’s all this _really_ about, then?”

The Doctor opened her mouth and then closed it, letting out a sharp breath from her nose and looking about as exhausted as Yasmin felt. 

“Well, we plodded and poked about the universe a great deal,” the Doctor relented finally, the words running from her like they had been held back before. “She- she was brilliant, in every sense of the word. Then she got herself all tangled about in my timeline, and then she died about a thousand times. But-” she hurried on, seeing Yasmin’s horrified face, “she was fine, after all that. We travelled quite a ways.” The Doctor’s face twisted a bit before she straightened it, poking at the phone, eyes flickering between the screen and Yaz.

“That’s not- that’s not fine at all, Doctor,” Yasmin breathed, eyes frightened. “How can you say-” “It wasn’t fine,” the Doctor bit out, teeth gritted. “It wasn’t fine at _all,_ Yasmin, is that what you want me to tell you? That not only did she tangle herself up in my timeline, she split herself into a million different versions of herself, in order to help _me._ And if that somehow wasn’t quite enough, every time she died, no matter who she was- a nanny, a governess, a stranger pointing me in the right direction- every time she died, I was there. And I was too much, or never enough.”

Yasmin flinched. 

The Doctor set down the phone with a clatter, closing her eyes a long moment. 

“I’m sorry, Yaz. I shouldn’t’ve snapped at you. It isn’t fine, Yaz. Never will be. But the last time she died-” the Doctor opened her eyes after a long moment, “she was pulled out of her own timeline, again. By me this time. Not her own choice, even. Stuck between her moment before last and her absolute last, frozen in time by a bunch of old Time Lord technology. And she was supposed to go back- to reinsert herself back into her timeline, because if she didn’t, she’d be chased down by a bunch of awful old-” she broke off. “Stuff that’s not really good for the universe would happen, that is. But in the end, she _didn’t_ go back, apparently, and now she’s both in _very real_ danger, but also,” the Doctor rapped at the speaker with her knuckles before frowning a bit and prodding it with her screwdriver. Her voice took on an almost terrified, hushed tone. “Very much alive and real.”

She spun around. 

“It terrifies me, Yaz, it really does. But, anyways,” her voice brightened in a very false sort of way, “this thing is about done now, so if you could just attach those last two wires there-” Yasmin didn’t move, and the Doctor gave her a searching look before leaping over to attach them herself. The phone gave a loud ring, and the Doctor’s eyes brightened with hope. She snatched it up in one hand while twisting one of the knobs on the speaker to the right with the other. 

“Brilliant,” she whispered. Yasmin shook herself out of her frozen state, focusing on the Doctor again. 

“Have you found it, then?” she asked carefully. “Doctor, we really should- find your friend. Will this work?” She bit her lip a bit, deciding that the rest of the conversation should be carefully tucked into her box of questions until later. 

The Doctor’s eyes met hers, and it was clear the Doctor hadn’t expected Yasmin to agree so quickly. 

“It should,” she assured with a soft smile. “Everything seems alright. Pass me the credit scanner there for a moment? The orange thing. Thanks a million.” 

She slammed the handle of the orange scanner against the side of the table, and the back split apart. The Doctor’s eyes were energetic and bright as she fished out a long sort of spindle and fastened it into a spliced wire, before hooking the other end to a wire right by the phone.

“Alright then,” she announced. “Cross your fingers,” she added, giving Yaz a wink. She pressed a button fashioned out of copper wire and electrical tape on the side of the speaker, and leaned back to rock on her heels before looking again at the phone. 

“Got it,” she grinned, eyes sparking and rising to meet Yasmin’s. We’ve got a lock on a location.”

Yasmin breathed a sigh of relief, but then furrowed her brow. “Right, now how are we supposed to get there?” she asked.

“Well hold tight, I said I’d get there, didn’t I?” replied the Doctor indignantly. She patted down her pockets with a frown before raising her eyebrows, opening a flap in her coat and sinking her arm elbow-deep into one of her pockets. Yasmin’s eyes grew as large as plates. 

“Have you got bigger on the inside pockets, as well?” she asked, tone almost indignant.

“Of course I have,” replied the Doctor candidly. “How else am I supposed to keep the custard creams, bananas, jelly babies, the pocket watch, the oil can, the teddy bear, oh! - there are the brainy specs- don’t know, might as well,-” she pulled out a pair of crooked looking glasses with thick lenses, sat them on the counter looking quite satisfied, and then shoved her arm back into her pocket.

“Yo-yo, some spoons, oh, that’s nice, love those- a recorder, spare hypercube- suppose I can use that again now, that’s mildly disconcerting- playing cards, _business_ cards, broken sonic, agh-”

She pulled her hand out of her pocket with a frown, shaking out her fingers, before going back in, rummaging a moment before her eyes lit up and she pulled out something that looked a bit like a clunky wristwatch. 

“ _That’s_ what you were looking for?” Yasmin asked disbelievingly. The Doctor wrinkled her nose. 

“Ugly, isn’t it. I agree,” she moaned. “But needs must, and as much as I hate ripping little holes in the universe and exposing you directly to the Time Vortex-” at Yasmin’s look, she continued hurriedly, “it’s safe enough, so long as you don’t do it too often- honestly- well, at least this once.” 

She sighed. “Still think it’s a rubbish mode of travel, though. Honestly. But we don’t have much of a choice.” She strapped it on. 

“Hold on,” Yasmin protested. “That’s a - what was it- a vortex manipulation. That- thing, in Alabama, that you told us was a ‘temporal displacement weapon.’ You made it sound awful, and now you’re just using it soon as it’s convenient for you? Doctor, that’s not right.”

“Anything can be a weapon in the wrong hands,” the Doctor returned, eyes serious. 

“Yeah, but some things are just weapons, regardless,” Yasmin said. “If it weren’t a weapon, you wouldn’t have said it was. You wouldn’t have done something like that if you thought there’d be a chance you should ever have to use it. You’re against guns, Doctor, against weapons.” She bit her lip, debating on whether or not to continue for a long moment before plowing forwards.

“I’m afraid for you Doctor, really. I don’t know what you’re playing at, and it scares me. I really thought I knew you, at least a bit, but now you’re jumping about the universe for a single person, and doing all this- and rules aren’t rules if you’re allowed to break them,” she protested. “You can’t go about breaking rules when it’s convenient,” she finished quietly. 

The Doctor was quiet a moment, and her eyes were a bit old as she looked at Yaz, her mouth drawn into a soft frown. 

“There’s almost never such a thing as a hard and fast rule, Yaz,” she finally said, her voice tired. “When you’ve lived longer than most all civilization, you see rules fall and reconstruct themselves around the needs of the people. Those rules are there to keep the people safe. But when you live longer than the entirety of all those civilizations, rules become, in some cases, arbitrary. Ever-changing. And I keep my friends around, my fam, because you lot are brilliant, and you show me that there are rules never meant to be broken. You show me the universe through new eyes that rationalize things as humans do- as you should! It’s brilliant. You are brilliant, Yasmin Khan, and there is absolutely no doubt about that. But there are sometimes-” she cut off, shifting almost uncomfortably, “that things change. And I have to balance listening to a point of view that isn’t mine, and taking into account all I know. And it’s a line-” she stopped and thought a moment, blowing out a puff of breath that disturbed the hair fluttering around her face.

“I don’t know, Yasmin. I don’t know everything. But what I do know,” she continued, licking her lips and poking at her wrist, “is that this works. And that I have a duty, to you, and to Clara, and to Graham and Ryan, to get you home. And if you want to stay there once you’re back, that’s - that’s fine. Because I know how some of this might look to you, and I understand. And I’m sorry.”

“So you just cast me off soon as I disagree with you?” Yasmin disagreed, shaking her head. 

“No,” the Doctor pleaded. “I don’t, and I never would. You can stay as long as you like, Yasmin Khan. That’s a promise.”

Yasmin stared at her for a long moment. “And are your promises the same as your rules?” she asked quietly, but the Doctor only stared back at her, meeting her eyes evenly. There were several long beats of silence. 

“I’ve programmed it,” the Doctor told her abruptly. “Coming?”

Yasmin nodded, stepping forward and grabbing the Doctor’s hand. The Doctor took a deep breath, about to speak, before Yasmin held up a finger with her free hand.

“Hold on a minute,” she said, turning to the back door where Natacha had exited for her smoke. “Natacha?” she spoke loudly. “We’re going- we’ll be back in half a jiffy with that hair dye!” 

There was no response, but Yasmin nodded firmly and turned back to the Doctor. “Ready,” she said, and the Doctor’s eyes softened. 

“Keeping your promises, Yasmin Khan. Brilliant.” She took a breath. “Off we go, then,” she affirmed. “Press that big button at the bottom for me?” She brought her wrist over to Yasmin, and Yasmin used her spare hand to reach over, her finger hovering over the button for a half second, almost indecisive, before she pressed it. 

A gust of air was left in their wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so that happened. this is literally everything I have written up to this point, and it clocks in at about 7.5k words. It was meant to be twoish chapters, but I copy-pasted them together at the last moment because you guys deserve it. Thank you so much for the comments and kudos!  
> Also, I have news!  
> so, regenderate and I (you may know them from their brilliant fic 'heartbeats,' as well as a host of other brilliant works,) are planning to write a doctor fic together at some point in the nearish future. However, seeing as you all are the ones making all this possible, we wanted to ask you all what you wanted to see from a fic. Is there an idea that you think would be really interesting to explore? If you have any thoughts- or even any thoughts of thoughts- please drop them down below! We have some ideas, but we really want to hear from you. Whenever felix next updates, they will put a note in there as well, so feel free to comment there once that happens, as well. Or both places - I'm not complaining!  
> Anyways, i thought I would go ahead and let you guys know about that- thank you all so much for the amazing comments last chapter, they really brightened my day. I likely won't update for a bit as I've got a busy week (as I said three days ago before posting this monster) but your comments are pure gold and fuel to keep pushing forwards. I love you all very dearly.


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